(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2009 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 

THE FIFTH CIRCUIT 

No. 08–1394. Argued March 1, 2010—Decided June 24, 2010 

Founded in 1985, Enron Corporation grew from its headquarters in

Houston, Texas, into the seventh highest-revenue-grossing company

in America. Petitioner Jeffrey Skilling, a longtime Enron officer, was 

Enron’s chief executive officer from February until August 2001, 

when he resigned. Less than four months later, Enron crashed into 

bankruptcy, and its stock plummeted in value. After an investigation 

uncovered an elaborate conspiracy to prop up Enron’s stock prices by 

overstating the company’s financial well-being, the Government

prosecuted dozens of Enron employees who participated in the

scheme. In time, the Government worked its way up the chain of 

command, indicting Skilling and two other top Enron executives. 

These three defendants, the indictment charged, engaged in a scheme

to deceive investors about Enron’s true financial performance by manipulating its publicly reported financial results and making false

and misleading statements. Count 1 of the indictment charged Skilling with, inter alia, conspiracy to commit “honest-services” wire 

fraud, 18 U. S. C. §§371, 1343, 1346, by depriving Enron and its

shareholders of the intangible right of his honest services. Skilling

was also charged with over 25 substantive counts of securities fraud, 

wire fraud, making false representations to Enron’s auditors, and insider trading.

In November 2004, Skilling moved for a change of venue, contending that hostility toward him in Houston, coupled with extensive pretrial publicity, had poisoned potential jurors. He submitted hundreds 

of news reports detailing Enron’s downfall, as well as affidavits from

experts he engaged portraying community attitudes in Houston in 

comparison to other potential venues. The District Court denied the 

motion, concluding that pretrial publicity did not warrant a presump-
2 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

tion that Skilling would be unable to obtain a fair trial in Houston.

Despite incidents of intemperate commentary, the court observed,

media coverage, on the whole, had been objective and unemotional,

and the facts of the case were neither heinous nor sensational. Moreover, the court asserted, effective voir dire would detect juror bias. 

In the months before the trial, the court asked the parties for questions it might use to screen prospective jurors. Rejecting the Government’s sparer inquiries in favor of Skilling’s more probing and

specific questions, the court converted Skilling’s submission, with

slight modifications, into a 77-question, 14-page document. The 

questionnaire asked prospective jurors about their sources of news

and exposure to Enron-related publicity, beliefs concerning Enron

and what caused its collapse, opinions regarding the defendants and 

their possible guilt or innocence, and relationships to the company

and to anyone affected by its demise. The court then mailed the 

questionnaire to 400 prospective jurors and received responses from 

nearly all of them. It granted hardship exemptions to about 90 individuals, and the parties, with the court’s approval, further winnowed

the pool by excusing another 119 for cause, hardship, or physical disability. The parties agreed to exclude, in particular, every prospective juror who said that a preexisting opinion about Enron or the defendants would prevent her from being impartial. 

In December 2005, three weeks before the trial date, one of Skilling’s co-defendants, Richard Causey, pleaded guilty. Skilling renewed his change-of-venue motion, arguing that the juror questionnaires revealed pervasive bias and that news accounts of Causey’s 

guilty plea further tainted the jury pool. The court again declined to

move the trial, ruling that the questionnaires and voir dire provided 

safeguards adequate to ensure an impartial jury. The court also denied Skilling’s request for attorney-led voir dire on the ground that 

potential jurors were more forthcoming with judges than with lawyers. But the court promised to give counsel an opportunity to ask

follow-up questions, agreed that venire members should be examined

individually about pretrial publicity, and allotted the defendants

jointly two extra peremptory challenges. 

 Voir dire began in January 2006. After questioning the venire as a

group, the court examined prospective jurors individually, asking

each about her exposure to Enron-related news, the content of any

stories that stood out in her mind, and any questionnaire answers 

that raised a red flag signaling possible bias. The court then permitted each side to pose follow-up questions and ruled on the parties’

challenges for cause. Ultimately, the court qualified 38 prospective

jurors, a number sufficient, allowing for peremptory challenges, to

empanel 12 jurors and 4 alternates. After a 4-month trial, the jury 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 3 

Syllabus 

found Skilling guilty of 19 counts, including the honest-services-fraud 

conspiracy charge, and not guilty of 9 insider-trading counts. 

On appeal, Skilling raised two arguments relevant here. First, he 

contended that pretrial publicity and community prejudice prevented

him from obtaining a fair trial. Second, he alleged that the jury improperly convicted him of conspiracy to commit honest-services wire 

fraud. As to the former, the Fifth Circuit initially determined that

the volume and negative tone of media coverage generated by Enron’s

collapse created a presumption of juror prejudice. Stating, however, 

that the presumption is rebuttable, the court examined the voir dire, 

found it “proper and thorough,” and held that the District Court had 

empaneled an impartial jury. The Court of Appeals also rejected 

Skilling’s claim that his conduct did not indicate any conspiracy to

commit honest-services fraud. It did not address Skilling’s argument

that the honest-services statute, if not interpreted to exclude his actions, should be invalidated as unconstitutionally vague. 

Held: 

1. Pretrial publicity and community prejudice did not prevent Skilling from obtaining a fair trial. He did not establish that a presumption of juror prejudice arose or that actual bias infected the jury that 

tried him. Pp. 11–34. 

(a) The District Court did not err in denying Skilling’s requests

for a venue transfer. Pp. 11–19.

(1) Although the Sixth Amendment and Art. III, §2, cl. 3, provide for criminal trials in the State and district where the crime was 

committed, these place-of-trial prescriptions do not impede transfer

of a proceeding to a different district if extraordinary local prejudice 

will prevent a fair trial. Pp. 11–12. 

(2) The foundation precedent for the presumption of prejudice

from which the Fifth Circuit’s analysis proceeded is Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 723. Wilbert Rideau robbed a small-town bank, kidnaped three bank employees, and killed one of them. Police interrogated Rideau in jail without counsel present and obtained his 

confession, which, without his knowledge, was filmed and televised

three times to large local audiences shortly before trial. After the 

Louisiana trial court denied Rideau’s change-of-venue motion, he was

convicted, and the conviction was upheld on direct appeal. This 

Court reversed. “[T]o the tens of thousands of people who saw and

heard it,” the Court explained, the interrogation “in a very real sense 

was Rideau’s trial—at which he pleaded guilty.” Id., at 726. 

“[W]ithout pausing to examine . . . the voir dire,” the Court held that 

the “kangaroo court proceedings” trailing the televised confession violated due process. Id., at 726–727. The Court followed Rideau in two 

other cases in which media coverage manifestly tainted criminal 
4 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

prosecutions. However, it later explained that those decisions “cannot be made to stand for the proposition that juror exposure to . . .

news accounts of the crime . . . alone presumptively deprives the defendant of due process.” Murphy v. Florida, 421 U. S. 794, 798–799. 

Thus, prominence does not necessarily produce prejudice, and juror 

impartiality does not require ignorance. See, e.g., Irvin v. Dowd, 366 

U. S. 717, 722. A presumption of prejudice attends only the extreme 

case. Pp. 12–16. 

(3) Important differences separate Skilling’s prosecution from 

those in which the Court has presumed juror prejudice. First, the 

Court has emphasized the size and characteristics of the community

in which the crime occurred. In contrast to the small-town setting in 

Rideau, for example, the record shows that Houston is the Nation’s

fourth most populous city. Given the large, diverse pool of residents 

eligible for jury duty, any suggestion that 12 impartial individuals

could not be empaneled in Houston is hard to sustain. Second, although news stories about Skilling were not kind, they contained no

blatantly prejudicial information such as Rideau’s dramatically 

staged admission of guilt. Third, unlike Rideau and other cases in 

which trial swiftly followed a widely reported crime, over four years

elapsed between Enron’s bankruptcy and Skilling’s trial. Although

reporters covered Enron-related news throughout this period, the 

decibel level of media attention diminished somewhat in the years 

following Enron’s collapse. Finally, and of prime significance, Skilling’s jury acquitted him of nine insider-trading counts. Similarly, 

earlier instituted Enron-related prosecutions yielded no overwhelming victory for the Government. It would be odd for an appellate 

court to presume prejudice in a case in which jurors’ actions run 

counter to that presumption. Pp. 16–18.

(4) The Fifth Circuit presumed juror prejudice based primarily

on the magnitude and negative tone of the media attention directed

at Enron. But “pretrial publicity—even pervasive, adverse publicity—does not inevitably lead to an unfair trial.” Nebraska Press 

Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U. S. 539, 554. Here, news stories about Enron 

did not present the kind of vivid, unforgettable information the Court

has recognized as particularly likely to produce prejudice, and Houston’s size and diversity diluted the media’s impact. Nor did Enron’s 

sheer number of victims trigger a presumption. Although the widespread community impact necessitated careful identification and inspection of prospective jurors’ connections to Enron, the extensive

screening questionnaire and follow-up voir dire yielded jurors whose

links to Enron were either nonexistent or attenuated. Finally, while 

Causey’s well publicized decision to plead guilty shortly before trial 

created a danger of juror prejudice, the District Court took appropri-
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 5 

Syllabus 

ate steps to mitigate that risk. Pp. 18–19. 

(b) No actual prejudice contaminated Skilling’s jury. The Court 

rejects Skilling’s assertions that voir dire did not adequately detect

and defuse juror prejudice and that several seated jurors were biased.

Pp. 20–34. 

(1) No hard-and-fast formula dictates the necessary depth or 

breadth of voir dire. Jury selection is “particularly within the province of the trial judge.” Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U. S. 589, 594–595. 

When pretrial publicity is at issue, moreover, “primary reliance on

the judgment of the trial court makes [especially] good sense” because the judge “sits in the locale where the publicity is said to have

had its effect” and may base her evaluation on her “own perception of 

the depth and extent of news stories that might influence a juror.” 

Mu’Min v. Virginia, 500 U. S. 415, 427. The Court considers the adequacy of jury selection in Skilling’s case attentive to the respect due 

to district-court determinations of juror impartiality and of the 

measures necessary to ensure that impartiality. Pp. 20–21. 

(2) Skilling failed to show that his voir dire fell short of constitutional requirements. The jury-selection process was insufficient,

Skilling maintains, because voir dire lasted only five hours, most of 

the District Court’s questions were conclusory and failed adequately 

to probe jurors’ true feelings, and the court consistently took prospective jurors at their word once they claimed they could be fair, no matter any other indications of bias. This Court’s review of the record, 

however, yields a different appraisal. The District Court initially 

screened venire members by eliciting their responses to a comprehensive questionnaire drafted in large part by Skilling. That survey 

helped to identify prospective jurors excusable for cause and served 

as a springboard for further questions; voir dire thus was the culmination of a lengthy process. Moreover, inspection of the questionnaires and voir dire of the seated jurors reveals that, notwithstanding the flaws Skilling lists, the selection process secured jurors

largely uninterested in publicity about Enron and untouched by the 

corporation’s collapse. Whatever community prejudice existed in 

Houston generally, Skilling’s jurors were not under its sway. Relying 

on Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S., at 727–728, Skilling asserts the District

Court should not have accepted jurors’ promises of fairness. But a 

number of factors show that the District Court had far less reason 

than the trial court in Irvin to discredit jurors’ assurances of impartiality: News stories about Enron contained nothing resembling the

horrifying information rife in reports about Leslie Irvin’s rampage of 

robberies and murders; Houston shares little in common with the rural community in which Irvin’s trial proceeded; circulation figures for 

Houston media sources were far lower than the 95% saturation level 
6 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

recorded in Irvin; and Skilling’s seated jurors exhibited nothing like 

the display of bias shown in Irvin. In any event, the District Court

did not simply take venire members at their word. It questioned 

each juror individually to uncover concealed bias. This face-to-face 

opportunity to gauge demeanor and credibility, coupled with information from the questionnaires regarding jurors’ backgrounds, opinions,

and news sources, gave the court a sturdy foundation to assess fitness for jury service. Pp. 22–30.

(3) Skilling’s allegation that several jurors were openly biased

also fails. In reviewing such claims, the deference due to district

courts is at its pinnacle: “ ‘A trial court’s findings of juror impartiality

may be overturned only for manifest error.’ ” Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 

428. Skilling, moreover, unsuccessfully challenged only one of the 

seated jurors for cause, “strong evidence that he was convinced the

[other] jurors were not biased and had not formed any opinions as to

his guilt.” Beck v. Washington, 369 U. S. 541, 557–558. A review of 

the record reveals no manifest error regarding the empaneling of Jurors 11, 20, and 63, each of whom indicated, inter alia, that he or she 

would be fair to Skilling and would require the Government to prove

its case. Four other jurors Skilling claims he would have excluded

with extra peremptory strikes, Jurors 38, 67, 78, and 84, exhibited no

signs of prejudice this Court can discern. Pp. 31–34. 

2. Section 1346, which proscribes fraudulent deprivations of “the

intangible right of honest services,” is properly confined to cover only 

bribery and kickback schemes. Because Skilling’s alleged misconduct 

entailed no bribe or kickback, it does not fall within the Court’s confinement of §1346’s proscription. Pp. 34–51. 

(a) To place Skilling’s claim that §1346 is unconstitutionally

vague in context, the Court reviews the origin and subsequent application of the honest-services doctrine. Pp. 34–38. 

(1) In a series of decisions beginning in the 1940s, the Courts

of Appeals, one after another, interpreted the mail-fraud statute’s 

prohibition of “any scheme or artifice to defraud” to include deprivations not only of money or property, but also of intangible rights.

See, e.g., Shushan v. United States, 117 F. 2d 110, which stimulated 

the development of the “honest-services” doctrine. Unlike traditional 

fraud, in which the victim’s loss of money or property supplied the defendant’s gain, with one the mirror image of the other, the honestservices doctrine targeted corruption that lacked similar symmetry. 

While the offender profited, the betrayed party suffered no deprivation of money or property; instead, a third party, who had not been 

deceived, provided the enrichment. Even if the scheme occasioned a 

money or property gain for the betrayed party, courts reasoned, actionable harm lay in the denial of that party’s right to the offender’s 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 7 

Syllabus 

“honest services.” Most often these cases involved bribery of public 

officials, but over time, the courts increasingly recognized that the 

doctrine applied to a private employee who breached his allegiance to

his employer, often by accepting bribes or kickbacks. By 1982, all

Courts of Appeals had embraced the honest-services theory of fraud. 

Pp. 34–37. 

(2) In 1987, this Court halted the development of the intangible-rights doctrine in McNally v. United States, 483 U. S. 350, 360, 

which held that the mail-fraud statute was “limited in scope to the

protection of property rights.” “If Congress desires to go further,” the 

Court stated, “it must speak more clearly.” Ibid. P. 37. 

(3) Congress responded the next year by enacting §1346, which 

provides: “For the purposes of th[e] chapter [of the U. S. Code that 

prohibits, inter alia, mail fraud, §1341, and wire fraud, §1343], the 

term ‘scheme or artifice to defraud’ includes a scheme or artifice to 

deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” Pp 37–38. 

(b) Section 1346, properly confined to core cases, is not unconstitutionally vague. Pp. 38–51.

(1) To satisfy due process, “a penal statute [must] define the 

criminal offense [1] with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people 

can understand what conduct is prohibited and [2] in a manner that

does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” 

Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U. S. 352, 357. The void-for-vagueness doctrine embraces these requirements. Skilling contends that §1346

meets neither of the two due-process essentials. But this Court must, 

if possible, construe, not condemn, Congress’ enactments. See, e.g., 

Civil Service Comm’n v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548, 571. Alert to 

§1346’s potential breadth, the Courts of Appeals have divided on how 

best to interpret the statute. Uniformly, however, they have declined 

to throw out the statute as irremediably vague. This Court agrees 

that §1346 should be construed rather than invalidated. P. 38–39. 

(2) The Court looks to the doctrine developed in pre-McNally

cases in an endeavor to ascertain the meaning of the phrase “the intangible right of honest services.” There is no doubt that Congress

intended §1346 to refer to and incorporate the honest-services doctrine recognized in Courts of Appeals’ decisions before McNally derailed the intangible-rights theory of fraud. Congress, it bears emphasis, enacted §1346 on the heels of McNally and drafted the 

statute using that decision’s terminology. See 483 U. S., at 355, 362. 

Pp. 39–40. 

(3) To preserve what Congress certainly intended §1346 to

cover, the Court pares the pre-McNally body of precedent down to its 

core: In the main, the pre-McNally cases involved fraudulent schemes 

to deprive another of honest services through bribes or kickbacks 
8 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

supplied by a third party who had not been deceived. In parsing the 

various pre-McNally decisions, the Court acknowledges that Skilling’s vagueness challenge has force, for honest-services decisions 

were not models of clarity or consistency. It has long been the 

Court’s practice, however, before striking a federal statute as impermissibly vague, to consider whether the prescription is amenable to a 

limiting construction. See, e.g., Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 

657. Arguing against any limiting construction, Skilling contends 

that it is impossible to identify a salvageable honest-services core because the pre-McNally cases are inconsistent and hopelessly unclear.

This Court rejected an argument of the same tenor in Letter Carriers, 

413 U. S., at 571–572. Although some applications of the preMcNally honest-services doctrine occasioned disagreement among the 

Courts of Appeals, these decisions do not cloud the fact that the vast

majority of cases involved offenders who, in violation of a fiduciary 

duty, participated in bribery or kickback schemes. Indeed, McNally 

itself presented a paradigmatic kickback fact pattern. 483 U. S., at 

352–353, 360. In view of this history, there is no doubt that Congress

intended §1346 to reach at least bribes and kickbacks. Because reading the statute to proscribe a wider range of offensive conduct would

raise vagueness concerns, the Court holds that §1346 criminalizes 

only the bribe-and-kickback core of the pre-McNally case law. 

Pp. 41–45. 

(4) The Government urges the Court to go further by reading

§1346 to proscribe another category of conduct: undisclosed selfdealing by a public official or private employee. Neither of the Government’s arguments in support of this position withstands close inspection. Contrary to the first, McNally itself did not center on nondisclosure of a conflicting financial interest, but rather involved a 

classic kickback scheme. See 483 U. S., at 352–353, 360. Reading 

§1346 to proscribe bribes and kickbacks—and nothing more— 

satisfies Congress’ undoubted aim to reverse McNally on its facts. 

Nor is the Court persuaded by the Government’s argument that the 

pre-McNally conflict-of-interest cases constitute core applications of

the honest-services doctrine. Although the Courts of Appeals upheld 

honest-services convictions for some conflict-of-interest schemes, they 

reached no consensus on which schemes qualified. Given the relative 

infrequency of those prosecutions and the intercircuit inconsistencies

they produced, the Court concludes that a reasonable limiting construction of §1346 must exclude this amorphous category of cases. 

Further dispelling doubt on this point is the principle that “ambiguity concerning the ambit of criminal statutes should be resolved in

favor of lenity.” Cleveland v. United States, 531 U. S. 12, 25. The 

Court therefore resists the Government’s less constrained construc-
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 9 

Syllabus 

tion of §1346 absent Congress’ clear instruction otherwise. “If Congress desires to go further,” the Court reiterates, “it must speak more

clearly than it has.” McNally, 483 U. S., at 360. Pp. 45–47. 

(5) Interpreted to encompass only bribery and kickback 

schemes, §1346 is not unconstitutionally vague. A prohibition on 

fraudulently depriving another of one’s honest services by accepting

bribes or kickbacks presents neither a fair-notice nor an arbitraryprosecution problem. See Kolender, 461 U. S., at 357. As to fair notice, it has always been clear that bribes and kickbacks constitute

honest-services fraud, Williams v. United States, 341 U. S. 97, 101, 

and the statute’s mens rea requirement further blunts any notice 

concern, see, e.g., Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 101–104. As 

to arbitrary prosecutions, the Court perceives no significant risk that 

the honest-services statute, as here interpreted, will be stretched out

of shape. Its prohibition on bribes and kickbacks draws content not

only from the pre-McNally case law, but also from federal statutes 

proscribing and defining similar crimes. Pp. 48–49. 

(c) Skilling did not violate §1346, as the Court interprets the 

statute. The Government charged Skilling with conspiring to defraud Enron’s shareholders by misrepresenting the company’s fiscal 

health to his own profit, but the Government never alleged that he

solicited or accepted side payments from a third party in exchange for 

making these misrepresentations. Because the indictment alleged

three objects of the conspiracy—honest-services wire fraud, moneyor-property wire fraud, and securities fraud—Skilling’s conviction is

flawed. See Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298. This determination, however, does not necessarily require reversal of the conspiracy 

conviction, for errors of the Yates variety are subject to harmlesserror analysis. The Court leaves the parties’ dispute about whether 

the error here was harmless for resolution on remand, along with the

question whether reversal on the conspiracy count would touch any of 

Skilling’s other convictions. Pp. 49–50. 

554 F. 3d 529, affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. 

GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, Part I of which was 

joined by ROBERTS, C. J., and STEVENS, SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and 

ALITO, JJ., Part II of which was joined by ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, 

KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., and Part III of which was joined by ROBERTS, C. J., and STEVENS, BREYER, ALITO, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ. SCALIA, 

J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, 

in which THOMAS, J., joined, and KENNEDY, J., joined except as to Part 

III. ALITO, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the 

judgment. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which STEVENS and BREYER, JJ., joined. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 08–1394 

JEFFREY K. SKILLING, PETITIONER v. UNITED 

STATES 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

[June 24, 2010] 

JUSTICE GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. 

In 2001, Enron Corporation, then the seventh highestrevenue-grossing company in America, crashed into bankruptcy. We consider in this opinion two questions arising

from the prosecution of Jeffrey Skilling, a longtime Enron 

executive, for crimes committed before the corporation’s

collapse. First, did pretrial publicity and community

prejudice prevent Skilling from obtaining a fair trial? 

Second, did the jury improperly convict Skilling of conspiracy to commit “honest-services” wire fraud, 18 U. S. C.

§§371, 1343, 1346? 

Answering no to both questions, the Fifth Circuit affirmed Skilling’s convictions. We conclude, in common 

with the Court of Appeals, that Skilling’s fair-trial argument fails; Skilling, we hold, did not establish that a 

presumption of juror prejudice arose or that actual bias 

infected the jury that tried him. But we disagree with the 

Fifth Circuit’s honest-services ruling. In proscribing

fraudulent deprivations of “the intangible right of honest 

services,” §1346, Congress intended at least to reach

schemes to defraud involving bribes and kickbacks. Con­
2 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

struing the honest-services statute to extend beyond that 

core meaning, we conclude, would encounter a vagueness 

shoal. We therefore hold that §1346 covers only bribery 

and kickback schemes. Because Skilling’s alleged misconduct entailed no bribe or kickback, it does not fall within 

§1346’s proscription. We therefore affirm in part and

vacate in part. 

I 

Founded in 1985, Enron Corporation grew from its

headquarters in Houston, Texas, into one of the world’s

leading energy companies. Skilling launched his career 

there in 1990 when Kenneth Lay, the company’s founder,

hired him to head an Enron subsidiary. Skilling steadily

rose through the corporation’s ranks, serving as president 

and chief operating officer, and then, beginning in February 2001, as chief executive officer. Six months later, on 

August 14, 2001, Skilling resigned from Enron. 

Less than four months after Skilling’s departure, Enron 

spiraled into bankruptcy. The company’s stock, which had 

traded at $90 per share in August 2000, plummeted to 

pennies per share in late 2001. Attempting to comprehend 

what caused the corporation’s collapse, the U. S. Department of Justice formed an Enron Task Force, comprising 

prosecutors and FBI agents from around the Nation. The 

Government’s investigation uncovered an elaborate conspiracy to prop up Enron’s short-run stock prices by overstating the company’s financial well-being. In the years

following Enron’s bankruptcy, the Government prosecuted

dozens of Enron employees who participated in the

scheme. In time, the Government worked its way up the 

corporation’s chain of command: On July 7, 2004, a grand 

jury indicted Skilling, Lay, and Richard Causey, Enron’s 

former chief accounting officer.

These three defendants, the indictment alleged, 

“engaged in a wide-ranging scheme to deceive the in­
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

vesting public, including Enron’s shareholders, . . . 

about the true performance of Enron’s businesses by:

(a) manipulating Enron’s publicly reported financial

results; and (b) making public statements and representations about Enron’s financial performance and 

results that were false and misleading.” App. ¶5, p.

277a. 

Skilling and his co-conspirators, the indictment continued, 

“enriched themselves as a result of the scheme through

salary, bonuses, grants of stock and stock options, other 

profits, and prestige.” Id., ¶14, at 280a.

Count 1 of the indictment charged Skilling with conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud; in particular, 

it alleged that Skilling had sought to “depriv[e] Enron and 

its shareholders of the intangible right of [his] honest 

services.” Id., ¶87, at 318a.1 The indictment further 

charged Skilling with more than 25 substantive counts of 

securities fraud, wire fraud, making false representations 

to Enron’s auditors, and insider trading.

In November 2004, Skilling moved to transfer the trial

to another venue; he contended that hostility toward him 

in Houston, coupled with extensive pretrial publicity, had 

poisoned potential jurors. To support this assertion, Skilling, aided by media experts, submitted hundreds of news 

reports detailing Enron’s downfall; he also presented

affidavits from the experts he engaged portraying community attitudes in Houston in comparison to other potential 

venues. 

The U. S. District Court for the Southern District of 

—————— 

1The mail- and wire-fraud statutes criminalize the use of the mails or 

wires in furtherance of “any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, 

representations, or promises.” 18 U. S. C. §1341 (mail fraud); §1343 

(wire fraud). The honest-services statute, §1346, defines “the term

‘scheme or artifice to defraud’ ” in these provisions to include “a scheme

or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” 
4 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

Texas, in accord with rulings in two earlier instituted 

Enron-related prosecutions,2 denied the venue-transfer 

motion. Despite “isolated incidents of intemperate commentary,” the court observed, media coverage “ha[d]

[mostly] been objective and unemotional,” and the facts of

the case were “neither heinous nor sensational.” App. to 

Brief for United States 10a–11a.3 Moreover, “courts ha[d]

commonly” favored “effective voir dire . . . to ferret out any

[juror] bias.” Id., at 18a. Pretrial publicity about the case,

the court concluded, did not warrant a presumption that

Skilling would be unable to obtain a fair trial in Houston. 

Id., at 22a. 

In the months leading up to the trial, the District Court

solicited from the parties questions the court might use to

screen prospective jurors. Unable to agree on a questionnaire’s format and content, Skilling and the Government submitted dueling documents. On venire members’ 

sources of Enron-related news, for example, the Govern­

—————— 

2See United States v. Fastow, 292 F. Supp. 2d 914, 918 (SD Tex. 

2003); Order in United States v. Hirko, No. 4:03–cr–00093 (SD Tex., 

Nov. 24, 2004), Doc. 484, p. 6. These rulings were made by two other 

judges of the same District. Three judges residing in the area thus

independently found that defendants in Enron-related cases could 

obtain a fair trial in Houston. 3Painting a different picture of the media coverage surrounding Enron’s collapse, JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR’s opinion relies heavily on affidavits

of media experts and jury consultants submitted by Skilling in support

of his venue-transfer motion. E.g., post, at 2, 3, 4, 5 (opinion concurring

in part and dissenting in part) (hereinafter dissent); post, at 5, n. 2, and 

23, n. 10; post, at 26, and 35, n. 22. These Skilling-employed experts 

selected and emphasized negative statements in various news stories. 

But the District Court Judge did not find the experts’ samples representative of the coverage at large; having “[m]eticulous[ly] review[ed] 

all of the evidence” Skilling presented, the court concluded that “incidents [of news reports using] less-than-objective language” were

dwarfed by “the largely fact-based tone of most of the articles.” App. to

Brief for United States 7a, 10a, 11a. See also post, at 3 (acknowledging

that “many of the stories were straightforward news items”). 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

ment proposed that they tick boxes from a checklist of 

generic labels such as “[t]elevision,” “[n]ewspaper,” and 

“[r]adio,” Record 8415; Skilling proposed more probing 

questions asking venire members to list the specific names

of their media sources and to report on “what st[ood] out

in [their] mind[s]” of “all the things [they] ha[d] seen,

heard or read about Enron,” id., at 8404–8405. 

The District Court rejected the Government’s sparer

inquiries in favor of Skilling’s submission. Skilling’s

questions “[we]re more helpful,” the court said, “because 

[they] [we]re generally . . . open-ended and w[ould] allow 

the potential jurors to give us more meaningful information.” Id., at 9539. The court converted Skilling’s submission, with slight modifications, into a 77-question, 14-page 

document that asked prospective jurors about, inter alia, 

their sources of news and exposure to Enron-related publicity, beliefs concerning Enron and what caused its collapse, opinions regarding the defendants and their possible guilt or innocence, and relationships to the company 

and to anyone affected by its demise.4 

—————— 

4Questions included the following: “What are your opinions about the 

compensation that executives of large corporations receive?”; “Have 

you, any family members, or friends ever worked for or applied for work 

with,” “done business with,” or “owned stock in Enron Corporation or 

any Enron subsidiaries and partnership?”; “Do you know anyone . . . 

who has been negatively affected or hurt in any way by what happened 

at Enron?”; “Do you have an opinion about the cause of the collapse of 

Enron? If YES, what is your opinion? On what do you base your

opinion?”; “Have you heard or read about any of the Enron cases? If 

YES, please tell us the name of all sources from which you have heard 

or read about the Enron cases.”; “Have you read any books or seen any

movies about Enron? If YES, please describe.”; “Are you angry about

what happened with Enron? If YES, please explain.”; “Do you have an

opinion about . . . Jeffrey Skilling . . . [?] If YES, what is your opinion? 

On what do you base your opinion?”; “Based on anything you have

heard, read, or been told[,] do you have any opinion about the guilt or 

innocence of . . . Jeffrey Skilling[?] If . . . YES . . . , please explain.”;

“[W]ould any opinion you may have formed regarding Enron or any of 
6 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

In November 2005, the District Court mailed the questionnaire to 400 prospective jurors and received responses 

from nearly all the addressees. The court granted hardship exemptions to approximately 90 individuals, id., at 

11773–11774, and the parties, with the court’s approval,

further winnowed the pool by excusing another 119 for

cause, hardship, or physical disability, id., at 11891, 

13594. The parties agreed to exclude, in particular, “each

and every” prospective juror who said that a preexisting 

opinion about Enron or the defendants would prevent her 

from impartially considering the evidence at trial. Id., at 

13668. 

On December 28, 2005, three weeks before the date 

scheduled for the commencement of trial, Causey pleaded 

guilty. Skilling’s attorneys immediately requested a continuance, and the District Court agreed to delay the proceedings until the end of January 2006. Id., at 14277. In 

the interim, Skilling renewed his change-of-venue motion,

arguing that the juror questionnaires revealed pervasive 

bias and that news accounts of Causey’s guilty plea further tainted the jury pool. If Houston remained the trial 

venue, Skilling urged that “jurors need to be questioned 

individually by both the Court and counsel” concerning 

their opinions of Enron and “publicity issues.” Id., at 

12074. 

The District Court again declined to move the trial.

Skilling, the court concluded, still had not “establish[ed]

that pretrial publicity and/or community prejudice raise[d] 

a presumption of inherent jury prejudice.” Id., at 14115. 

The questionnaires and voir dire, the court observed, 

provided safeguards adequate to ensure an impartial jury. 

—————— 

the defendants prevent you from impartially considering the evidence 

presented during the trial of . . . Jeffrey Skilling[?] If YES or UNSURE 

. . . , please explain.”; “Is there anything else you feel is important for 

the court to know about you?” Record 13013–13026. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

Id., at 14115–14116. 

Denying Skilling’s request for attorney-led voir dire, the 

court said that in 17 years on the bench: 

“I’ve found . . . I get more forthcoming responses from 

potential jurors than the lawyers on either side. I 

don’t know whether people are suspicious of lawyers—

but I think if I ask a person a question, I will get a 

candid response much easier than if a lawyer asks the 

question.” Id., at 11805. 

But the court promised to give counsel an opportunity to

ask follow-up questions, ibid., and it agreed that venire

members should be examined individually about pretrial 

publicity, id., at 11051–11053. The court also allotted the 

defendants jointly 14 peremptory challenges, 2 more than

the standard number prescribed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 24(b)(2) and (c)(4)(B). Id., at 13673–13675. 

Voir dire began on January 30, 2006. The District Court 

first emphasized to the venire the importance of impartiality and explained the presumption of innocence and the 

Government’s burden of proof. The trial, the court next 

instructed, was not a forum “to seek vengeance against 

Enron’s former officers,” or to “provide remedies for” its 

victims. App. 823a. “The bottom line,” the court stressed, 

“is that we want . . . jurors who . . . will faithfully, conscientiously and impartially serve if selected.” Id., at 823a– 

824a. In response to the court’s query whether any prospective juror questioned her ability to adhere to these

instructions, two individuals indicated that they could not 

be fair; they were therefore excused for cause, id., at 816a, 

819a–820a. 

After questioning the venire as a group,5 the District 

Court brought prospective jurors one by one to the bench 

—————— 

5Among other questions, the court asked whether sympathy toward

the victims of Enron’s collapse or a desire to see justice done would 

overpower prospective jurors’ impartiality. App. 839a–840a. 
8 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

for individual examination. Although the questions varied, the process generally tracked the following format:

The court asked about exposure to Enron-related news

and the content of any stories that stood out in the prospective juror’s mind. Next, the court homed in on questionnaire answers that raised a red flag signaling possible 

bias. The court then permitted each side to pose follow-up

questions. Finally, after the venire member stepped away, 

the court entertained and ruled on challenges for cause. 

In all, the court granted one of the Government’s forcause challenges and denied four; it granted three of the

defendants’ challenges and denied six. The parties agreed

to excuse three additional jurors for cause and one for 

hardship.

By the end of the day, the court had qualified 38 prospective jurors, a number sufficient, allowing for peremptory challenges, to empanel 12 jurors and 4 alternates.6 

Before the jury was sworn in, Skilling objected to the 

seating of six jurors. He did not contend that they were in

fact biased; instead, he urged that he would have used 

—————— 

6Selection procedures of similar style and duration took place in 

three Enron-related criminal cases earlier prosecuted in Houston— 

United States v. Arthur Andersen LLP, No. 4:02–cr–00121–1 (SD Tex.)

(charges against Enron’s outside accountants); United States v. Bayly, 

No. 4:03–cr–00363 (SD Tex.) (charges against Merrill Lynch and Enron

executives for alleged sham sales of Nigerian barges); United States v. 

Hirko, No. 4:03–cr–00093 (SD Tex.) (fraud and insider-trading charges

against five Enron Broadband Services executives). See Brief for 

United States 9 (In all three cases, the District Court “distributed a

jury questionnaire to a pool of several hundred potential jurors; dismissed individuals whose responses to the questionnaire demonstrated

bias or other disqualifying characteristics; and, after further questioning by the court and counsel, selected a jury from the remaining venire

in one day.”); Government’s Memorandum of Law in Response to

Defendants’ Joint Motion to Transfer Venue in United States v. Skilling

et al., No. 4:04–cr–00025 (SD Tex., Dec. 3, 2004), Record, Doc. 231, 

pp. 21–28 (describing in depth the jury-selection process in the Arthur 

Andersen and Bayly trials). 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

peremptories to exclude them had he not exhausted his

supply by striking several venire members after the court

refused to excuse them for cause. Supp. App. 3sa–4sa 

(Sealed).7 The court overruled this objection.

After the jurors took their oath, the District Court told 

them they could not discuss the case with anyone or follow 

media accounts of the proceedings. “[E]ach of you,” the 

court explained, “needs to be absolutely sure that your 

decisions concerning the facts will be based only on the 

evidence that you hear and read in this courtroom.” App.

1026a. 

Following a 4-month trial and nearly five days of deliberation, the jury found Skilling guilty of 19 counts, including the honest-services-fraud conspiracy charge, and not 

guilty of 9 insider-trading counts. The District Court 

sentenced Skilling to 292 months’ imprisonment, 3 years’

supervised release, and $45 million in restitution. 

On appeal, Skilling raised a host of challenges to his

convictions, including the fair-trial and honest-services 

arguments he presses here. Regarding the former, the 

Fifth Circuit initially determined that the volume and 

negative tone of media coverage generated by Enron’s

collapse created a presumption of juror prejudice. 554 

F. 3d 529, 559 (2009).8 The court also noted potential 

—————— 

7Skilling had requested an additional peremptory strike each time 

the District Court rejected a for-cause objection. The court, which had 

already granted two extra peremptories, see supra, at 7, denied each 

request. 8The Fifth Circuit described the media coverage as follows: 

“Local newspapers ran many personal interest stories in which 

sympathetic individuals expressed feelings of anger and betrayal 

toward Enron. . . . Even the [Houston] Chronicle’s sports page wrote of

Skilling’s guilt as a foregone conclusion. Similarly, the Chronicle’s 

‘Pethouse Pet of the Week’ section mentioned that a pet had ‘enjoyed

watching those Enron jerks being led away in handcuffs.’ These are 

but a few examples of the Chronicle’s coverage.” 554 F. 3d, at 559 

(footnote omitted). 
10 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

prejudice stemming from Causey’s guilty plea and from 

the large number of victims in Houston—from the

“[t]housands of Enron employees . . . [who] lost their jobs, 

and . . . saw their 401(k) accounts wiped out,” to Houstonians who suffered spillover economic effects. Id., at 559– 

560. 

The Court of Appeals stated, however, that “the presumption [of prejudice] is rebuttable,” and it therefore

examined the voir dire to determine whether “the District 

Court empanelled an impartial jury.” Id., at 561 (internal

quotation marks, italics, and some capitalization omitted).

The voir dire was, in the Fifth Circuit’s view, “proper and 

thorough.” Id., at 562. Moreover, the court noted, Skilling had challenged only one seated juror—Juror 11—for 

cause. Although Juror 11 made some troubling comments 

about corporate greed, the District Court “observed [his]

demeanor, listened to his answers, and believed he would 

make the government prove its case.” Id., at 564. In sum, 

the Fifth Circuit found that the Government had overcome 

the presumption of prejudice and that Skilling had not 

“show[n] that any juror who actually sat was prejudiced

against him.” Ibid. 

The Court of Appeals also rejected Skilling’s claim that 

his conduct did not indicate any conspiracy to commit

honest-services fraud. “[T]he jury was entitled to convict

Skilling,” the court stated, “on these elements”: “(1) a

material breach of a fiduciary duty . . . (2) that results in a

detriment to the employer,” including one occasioned by 

an employee’s decision to “withhold material information,

i.e., information that he had reason to believe would lead a 

reasonable employer to change its conduct.” Id., at 547. 

The Fifth Circuit did not address Skilling’s argument that

the honest-services statute, if not interpreted to exclude 

his actions, should be invalidated as unconstitutionally 

vague. Brief of Defendant-Appellant Jeffrey K. Skilling in 

No. 06–20885 (CA5), p. 65, n. 21. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 11 

Opinion of the Court 

Arguing that the Fifth Circuit erred in its consideration 

of these claims, Skilling sought relief from this Court. We 

granted certiorari, 558 U. S. ___ (2009), and now affirm in 

part, vacate in part, and remand for further proceedings.9 

We consider first Skilling’s allegation of juror prejudice,

and next, his honest-services argument. 

II 

Pointing to “the community passion aroused by Enron’s

collapse and the vitriolic media treatment” aimed at him,

Skilling argues that his trial “never should have proceeded 

in Houston.” Brief for Petitioner 20. And even if it had 

been possible to select impartial jurors in Houston, “[t]he

truncated voir dire . . . did almost nothing to weed out 

prejudices,” he contends, so “[f]ar from rebutting the presumption of prejudice, the record below affirmatively

confirmed it.” Id., at 21. Skilling’s fair-trial claim thus

raises two distinct questions. First, did the District Court 

err by failing to move the trial to a different venue based 

on a presumption of prejudice? Second, did actual prejudice contaminate Skilling’s jury?10 

A 

1 

The Sixth Amendment secures to criminal defendants 

—————— 

9We also granted certiorari and heard arguments this Term in two

other cases raising questions concerning the honest-services statute’s 

scope. See Black v. United States, No. 08–876; Weyhrauch v. United 

States, No. 08–1196. Today we vacate and remand those decisions in 

light of this opinion. Black, post, p. ___; Weyhrauch, post, p. ___. 

10Assuming, as the Fifth Circuit found, that a presumption of prejudice arose in Houston, the question presented in Skilling’s petition for 

certiorari casts his actual-prejudice argument as an inquiry into when, 

if ever, that presumption may be rebutted. See Pet. for Cert. i. Although we find a presumption of prejudice unwarranted in this case, we

consider the actual-prejudice issue to be fairly subsumed within the 

question we agreed to decide. See this Court’s Rule 14.1(a). 
12 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

the right to trial by an impartial jury. By constitutional 

design, that trial occurs “in the State where the . . . 

Crimes . . . have been committed.” Art. III, §2, cl. 3. See 

also Amdt. 6 (right to trial by “jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed”). The 

Constitution’s place-of-trial prescriptions, however, do not 

impede transfer of the proceeding to a different district at

the defendant’s request if extraordinary local prejudice

will prevent a fair trial—a “basic requirement of due

process,” In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133, 136 (1955).11 

2 

“The theory of our [trial] system is that the conclusions 

to be reached in a case will be induced only by evidence

and argument in open court, and not by any outside influ­

—————— 

11Venue transfer in federal court is governed by Federal Rule of 

Criminal Procedure 21, which instructs that a “court must transfer the 

proceeding . . . to another district if the court is satisfied that so great a 

prejudice against the defendant exists in the transferring district that

the defendant cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial there.” As the 

language of the Rule suggests, district-court calls on the necessity of

transfer are granted a healthy measure of appellate-court respect. See 

Platt v. Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co., 376 U. S. 240, 245 (1964).

Federal courts have invoked the Rule to move certain highly charged 

cases, for example, the prosecution arising from the bombing of the

Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City. See 

United States v. McVeigh, 918 F. Supp. 1467, 1474 (WD Okla. 1996).

They have also exercised discretion to deny venue-transfer requests in 

cases involving substantial pretrial publicity and community impact,

for example, the prosecutions resulting from the 1993 World Trade

Center bombing, see United States v. Salameh, No. S5 93 Cr. 0180 

(KTD) (SDNY, Sept. 15, 1993); United States v. Yousef, No. S12 93 

Cr. 180 (KTD) (SDNY, July 18, 1997), aff’d 327 F. 3d 56, 155 (CA2

2003), and the prosecution of John Walker Lindh, referred to in the

press as the American Taliban, see United States v. Lindh, 212 

F. Supp. 2d 541, 549–551 (ED Va. 2002). Skilling does not argue, 

distinct from his due process challenge, that the District Court abused

its discretion under Rule 21 by declining to move his trial. We therefore review the District Court’s venue-transfer decision only for compliance with the Constitution. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

ence, whether of private talk or public print.” Patterson v. 

Colorado ex rel. Attorney General of Colo., 205 U. S. 454, 

462 (1907) (opinion for the Court by Holmes, J.). When 

does the publicity attending conduct charged as criminal

dim prospects that the trier can judge a case, as due process requires, impartially, unswayed by outside influence? 

Because most cases of consequence garner at least some

pretrial publicity, courts have considered this question in

diverse settings. We begin our discussion by addressing 

the presumption of prejudice from which the Fifth Circuit’s analysis in Skilling’s case proceeded. The foundation precedent is Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 723 

(1963).

Wilbert Rideau robbed a bank in a small Louisiana 

town, kidnaped three bank employees, and killed one of 

them. Police interrogated Rideau in jail without counsel 

present and obtained his confession. Without informing 

Rideau, no less seeking his consent, the police filmed the 

interrogation. On three separate occasions shortly before

the trial, a local television station broadcast the film to 

audiences ranging from 24,000 to 53,000 individuals. 

Rideau moved for a change of venue, arguing that he could 

not receive a fair trial in the parish where the crime occurred, which had a population of approximately 150,000 

people. The trial court denied the motion, and a jury

eventually convicted Rideau. The Supreme Court of Louisiana upheld the conviction.

We reversed. “What the people [in the community] saw 

on their television sets,” we observed, “was Rideau, in jail, 

flanked by the sheriff and two state troopers, admitting in 

detail the commission of the robbery, kidnapping, and 

murder.” Id., at 725. “[T]o the tens of thousands of people 

who saw and heard it,” we explained, the interrogation “in

a very real sense was Rideau’s trial—at which he pleaded 

guilty.” Id., at 726. We therefore “d[id] not hesitate to 

hold, without pausing to examine a particularized tran­
14 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

script of the voir dire,” that “[t]he kangaroo court proceedings” trailing the televised confession violated due process. 

Id., at 726–727. 

 We followed Rideau’s lead in two later cases in which 

media coverage manifestly tainted a criminal prosecution. 

In Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 532, 538 (1965), extensive

publicity before trial swelled into excessive exposure

during preliminary court proceedings as reporters and 

television crews overran the courtroom and “bombard[ed] 

. . . the community with the sights and sounds of” the

pretrial hearing. The media’s overzealous reporting efforts, we observed, “led to considerable disruption” and

denied the “judicial serenity and calm to which [Billie Sol 

Estes] was entitled.” Id., at 536. 

 Similarly, in Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U. S. 333 (1966), 

news reporters extensively covered the story of Sam 

Sheppard, who was accused of bludgeoning his pregnant 

wife to death. “[B]edlam reigned at the courthouse during

the trial and newsmen took over practically the entire

courtroom,” thrusting jurors “into the role of celebrities.” 

Id., at 353, 355. Pretrial media coverage, which we characterized as “months [of] virulent publicity about 

Sheppard and the murder,” did not alone deny due process, we noted. Id., at 354. But Sheppard’s case involved 

more than heated reporting pretrial: We upset the murder

conviction because a “carnival atmosphere” pervaded the 

trial, id., at 358. 

In each of these cases, we overturned a “conviction 

obtained in a trial atmosphere that [was] utterly corrupted

by press coverage”; our decisions, however, “cannot be

made to stand for the proposition that juror exposure to

. . . news accounts of the crime . . . alone presumptively 

deprives the defendant of due process.” Murphy v. Florida, 421 U. S. 794, 798–799 (1975).12 See also, e.g., Patton 

—————— 

12 Murphy involved the robbery prosecution of the notorious Jack 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 15 

Opinion of the Court 

v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025 (1984).13 Prominence does not 

necessarily produce prejudice, and juror impartiality, we 

have reiterated, does not require ignorance. Irvin v. 

Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 722 (1961) (Jurors are not required 

to be “totally ignorant of the facts and issues involved”; 

“scarcely any of those best qualified to serve as jurors will 

not have formed some impression or opinion as to the 

merits of the case.”); Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 

145, 155–156 (1879) (“[E]very case of public interest is

almost, as a matter of necessity, brought to the attention

of all the intelligent people in the vicinity, and scarcely

any one can be found among those best fitted for jurors

who has not read or heard of it, and who has not some 

—————— 

Murphy, a convicted murderer who helped mastermind the 1964 heist

of the Star of India sapphire from New York’s American Museum of 

Natural History. Pointing to “extensive press coverage” about him,

Murphy moved to transfer venue. 421 U. S., at 796. The trial court 

denied the motion and a jury convicted Murphy. We affirmed. Murphy’s trial, we explained, was markedly different from the proceedings 

at issue in Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 723 (1963), Estes v. Texas, 

381 U. S. 532 (1965), and Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U. S. 333 (1966), 

which “entirely lack[ed] . . . the solemnity and sobriety to which a 

defendant is entitled in a system that subscribes to any notion of 

fairness and rejects the verdict of a mob.” 421 U. S., at 799. Voir dire 

revealed no great hostility toward Murphy; “[s]ome of the jurors had a 

vague recollection of the robbery with which [he] was charged and each

had some knowledge of [his] past crimes, but none betrayed any belief 

in the relevance of [his] past to the present case.” Id., at 800 (footnote 

omitted). 13 In Yount, the media reported on Jon Yount’s confession to a brutal

murder and his prior conviction for the crime, which had been reversed 

due to a violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). During 

voir dire, 77% of prospective jurors acknowledged they would carry an

opinion into the jury box, and 8 of the 14 seated jurors and alternates

admitted they had formed an opinion as to Yount’s guilt. 467 U. S., at 

1029–1030. Nevertheless, we rejected Yount’s presumption-ofprejudice claim. The adverse publicity and community outrage, we 

noted, were at their height prior to Yount’s first trial, four years before 

the second prosecution; time had helped “sooth[e] and eras[e]” community prejudice, id., at 1034. 
16 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

impression or some opinion in respect to its merits.”). A 

presumption of prejudice, our decisions indicate, attends 

only the extreme case. 

3 

 Relying on Rideau, Estes, and Sheppard, Skilling asserts that we need not pause to examine the screening

questionnaires or the voir dire before declaring his jury’s 

verdict void. We are not persuaded. Important differences separate Skilling’s prosecution from those in which 

we have presumed juror prejudice.14 

First, we have emphasized in prior decisions the size

and characteristics of the community in which the crime

occurred. In Rideau, for example, we noted that the murder was committed in a parish of only 150,000 residents.

Houston, in contrast, is the fourth most populous city in 

the Nation: At the time of Skilling’s trial, more than 4.5

million individuals eligible for jury duty resided in the 

Houston area. App. 627a. Given this large, diverse pool of

potential jurors, the suggestion that 12 impartial individuals could not be empaneled is hard to sustain. See 

Mu’Min v. Virginia, 500 U. S. 415, 429 (1991) (potential 

for prejudice mitigated by the size of the “metropolitan 

Washington [D. C.] statistical area, which has a population of over 3 million, and in which, unfortunately, hundreds of murders are committed each year”); Gentile v. 

State Bar of Nev., 501 U. S. 1030, 1044 (1991) (plurality 

opinion) (reduced likelihood of prejudice where venire was 

drawn from a pool of over 600,000 individuals).15 

—————— 

14Skilling’s reliance on Estes and Sheppard is particularly misplaced;

those cases involved media interference with courtroom proceedings 

during trial. See supra, at 14. Skilling does not assert that news

coverage reached and influenced his jury after it was empaneled. 

15According to a survey commissioned by Skilling in conjunction with 

his first motion for a venue change, only 12.3% of Houstonians named

him when asked to list Enron executives they believed guilty of crimes. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 17 

Opinion of the Court 

Second, although news stories about Skilling were not 

kind, they contained no confession or other blatantly 

prejudicial information of the type readers or viewers

could not reasonably be expected to shut from sight. 

Rideau’s dramatically staged admission of guilt, for instance, was likely imprinted indelibly in the mind of anyone who watched it. Cf. Parker v. Randolph, 442 U. S. 62, 

72 (1979) (plurality opinion) (“[T]he defendant’s own confession [is] probably the most probative and damaging

evidence that can be admitted against him.” (internal

quotation marks omitted)). Pretrial publicity about Skilling was less memorable and prejudicial. No evidence of 

the smoking-gun variety invited prejudgment of his culpability. See United States v. Chagra, 669 F. 2d 241, 251– 

252, n. 11 (CA5 1982) (“A jury may have difficulty in

disbelieving or forgetting a defendant’s opinion of his own

guilt but have no difficulty in rejecting the opinions of 

others because they may not be well-founded.”). 

Third, unlike cases in which trial swiftly followed a 

widely reported crime, e.g., Rideau, 373 U. S., at 724, over 

four years elapsed between Enron’s bankruptcy and Skilling’s trial. Although reporters covered Enron-related

news throughout this period, the decibel level of media 

attention diminished somewhat in the years following

Enron’s collapse. See App. 700a; id., at 785a; Yount, 467 

U. S., at 1032, 1034. 

Finally, and of prime significance, Skilling’s jury acquitted him of nine insider-trading counts. Similarly, earlier

instituted Enron-related prosecutions yielded no over­

—————— 

App. 375a–376a. In response to the follow-up question “[w]hat words 

come to mind when you hear the name Jeff Skilling?”, two-thirds of

respondents failed to say a single negative word, id., at 376a: 43%

either had never heard of Skilling or stated that nothing came to mind

when they heard his name, and another 23% knew Skilling’s name was

associated with Enron but reported no opinion about him, Record 3210–

3211; see App. 417a–492a. 
18 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

whelming victory for the Government.16 In Rideau, Estes, 

and Sheppard, in marked contrast, the jury’s verdict did

not undermine in any way the supposition of juror bias. It 

would be odd for an appellate court to presume prejudice 

in a case in which jurors’ actions run counter to that presumption. See, e.g., United States v. Arzola-Amaya, 867 

F. 2d 1504, 1514 (CA5 1989) (“The jury’s ability to discern 

a failure of proof of guilt of some of the alleged crimes 

indicates a fair minded consideration of the issues and 

reinforces our belief and conclusion that the media coverage did not lead to the deprivation of [the] right to an

impartial trial.”). 

4 

Skilling’s trial, in short, shares little in common with 

those in which we approved a presumption of juror prejudice. The Fifth Circuit reached the opposite conclusion 

based primarily on the magnitude and negative tone of 

media attention directed at Enron. But “pretrial publicity—even pervasive, adverse publicity—does not inevitably lead to an unfair trial.” Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U. S. 539, 554 (1976). In this case, as just noted,

news stories about Enron did not present the kind of vivid,

unforgettable information we have recognized as particularly likely to produce prejudice, and Houston’s size and 

diversity diluted the media’s impact.17 

—————— 

16As the United States summarizes, “[i]n Hirko, the jury deliberated

for several days and did not convict any Enron defendant; in Bayly, 

which was routinely described as ‘the first Enron criminal trial,’ the 

jury convicted five defendants, . . . but acquitted a former Enron executive. At the sentencing phase of Bayly, the jury found a loss amount of 

slightly over $13 million, even though the government had argued that

the true loss . . . was $40 million.” Brief for United States 9–10 (citation omitted). 17The Fifth Circuit, moreover, did not separate media attention 

aimed at Skilling from that devoted to Enron’s downfall more generally. 

Data submitted by Skilling in support of his first motion for a venue 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 19 

Opinion of the Court 

Nor did Enron’s “sheer number of victims,” 554 F. 3d, at 

560, trigger a presumption of prejudice. Although the

widespread community impact necessitated careful identification and inspection of prospective jurors’ connections to

Enron, the extensive screening questionnaire and followup voir dire were well suited to that task. And hindsight

shows the efficacy of these devices; as we discuss infra, 

at 24, jurors’ links to Enron were either nonexistent or 

attenuated. 

Finally, although Causey’s “well-publicized decision to

plead guilty” shortly before trial created a danger of juror 

prejudice, 554 F. 3d, at 559, the District Court took appropriate steps to reduce that risk. The court delayed the

proceedings by two weeks, lessening the immediacy of that

development. And during voir dire, the court asked about 

prospective jurors’ exposure to recent publicity, including 

news regarding Causey. Only two venire members recalled the plea; neither mentioned Causey by name, and 

neither ultimately served on Skilling’s jury. App. 888a, 

993a. Although publicity about a codefendant’s guilty plea 

calls for inquiry to guard against actual prejudice, it does

not ordinarily—and, we are satisfied, it did not here—

warrant an automatic presumption of prejudice. 

Persuaded that no presumption arose,18 we conclude 

that the District Court, in declining to order a venue 

change, did not exceed constitutional limitations.19 

—————— 

transfer suggested that a slim percentage of Enron-related stories 

specifically named him. App. 572a. “[W]hen publicity is about the

event, rather than directed at individual defendants, this may lessen

any prejudicial impact.” United States v. Hueftle, 687 F. 2d 1305, 1310 

(CA10 1982). 18The parties disagree about whether a presumption of prejudice can

be rebutted, and, if it can, what standard of proof governs that issue. 

Compare Brief for Petitioner 25–35 with Brief for United States 24–32,

35–36. Because we hold that no presumption arose, we need not, and 

do not, reach these questions. 19The dissent acknowledges that “the prospect of seating an unbiased 
20 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

B 

We next consider whether actual prejudice infected 

Skilling’s jury. Voir dire, Skilling asserts, did not adequately detect and defuse juror bias. “[T]he record . . .

affirmatively confirm[s]” prejudice, he maintains, because

several seated jurors “prejudged his guilt.” Brief for Petitioner 21. We disagree with Skilling’s characterization of

the voir dire and the jurors selected through it. 

1 

No hard-and-fast formula dictates the necessary depth

or breadth of voir dire. See United States v. Wood, 299 

U. S. 123, 145–146 (1936) (“Impartiality is not a technical 

conception. It is a state of mind. For the ascertainment of 

this mental attitude of appropriate indifference, the Constitution lays down no particular tests and procedure is

not chained to any ancient and artificial formula.”). Jury

selection, we have repeatedly emphasized, is “particularly 

within the province of the trial judge.” Ristaino v. Ross, 

424 U. S. 589, 594–595 (1976) (internal quotation marks

omitted); see, e.g., Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 424; Yount, 467 

U. S., at 1038; Rosales-Lopez v. United States, 451 U. S. 

182, 188–189 (1981) (plurality opinion); Connors v. United 

States, 158 U. S. 408–413 (1895). 

When pretrial publicity is at issue, “primary reliance on 

the judgment of the trial court makes [especially] good 

sense” because the judge “sits in the locale where the

publicity is said to have had its effect” and may base her

evaluation on her “own perception of the depth and extent 

of news stories that might influence a juror.” Mu’Min, 500 

U. S., at 427. Appellate courts making after-the-fact 

—————— 

jury in Houston was not so remote as to compel the conclusion that the

District Court acted unconstitutionally in denying Skilling’s motion to 

change venue.” Post, at 20. The dissent’s conclusion that Skilling did

not receive a fair trial accordingly turns on its perception of the adequacy of the jury-selection process. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 21 

Opinion of the Court 

assessments of the media’s impact on jurors should be 

mindful that their judgments lack the on-the-spot comprehension of the situation possessed by trial judges. 

Reviewing courts are properly resistant to secondguessing the trial judge’s estimation of a juror’s impartiality, for that judge’s appraisal is ordinarily influenced by a

host of factors impossible to capture fully in the record—

among them, the prospective juror’s inflection, sincerity,

demeanor, candor, body language, and apprehension of 

duty. See Reynolds, 98 U. S., at 156–157. In contrast to 

the cold transcript received by the appellate court, the inthe-moment voir dire affords the trial court a more intimate and immediate basis for assessing a venire member’s

fitness for jury service. We consider the adequacy of jury 

selection in Skilling’s case, therefore, attentive to the 

respect due to district-court determinations of juror impartiality and of the measures necessary to ensure that 

impartiality.20 

—————— 

20The dissent recognizes “the ‘wide discretion’ owed to trial courts 

when it comes to jury-related issues,” post, at 22 (quoting Mu’Min v. 

Virginia, 500 U. S. 415, 427 (1991)), but its analysis of the District 

Court’s voir dire sometimes fails to demonstrate that awareness. For 

example, the dissent faults the District Court for not questioning 

prospective jurors regarding their “knowledge of or feelings about” 

Causey’s guilty plea. Post, at 28. But the court could reasonably

decline to ask direct questions involving Causey’s plea to avoid tipping

off until-that-moment uninformed venire members that the plea had 

occurred. Cf. App. 822a (counsel for Skilling urged District Court to

find a way to question venire members about Causey “without mentioning anything”). Nothing inhibited defense counsel from inquiring about 

venire members’ knowledge of the plea; indeed, counsel posed such a 

question, id., at 993a; cf. post, at 28, n. 14 (acknowledging that counsel 

“squeeze[d] in” an inquiry whether a venire member had “read about

any guilty pleas in this case over the last month or two” (internal

quotation marks omitted)). From this Court’s lofty and “panoramic” 

vantage point, post, at 22, lines of voir dire inquiry that “might be

helpful in assessing whether a juror is impartial” are not hard to 

conceive. Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 425. “To be constitutionally compelled,

however, it is not enough that such questions might be helpful. Rather, 
22 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

2 

Skilling deems the voir dire insufficient because, he 

argues, jury selection lasted “just five hours,” “[m]ost of

the court’s questions were conclusory[,] high-level, and

failed adequately to probe jurors’ true feelings,” and the

court “consistently took prospective jurors at their word

once they claimed they could be fair, no matter what other

indications of bias were present.” Brief for Petitioner 10– 

11 (emphasis deleted). Our review of the record, however,

yields a different appraisal.21

 As noted, supra, at 4–6, and n. 4, the District Court 

initially screened venire members by eliciting their responses to a comprehensive questionnaire drafted in large

part by Skilling. That survey helped to identify prospective jurors excusable for cause and served as a springboard for further questions put to remaining members of

the array. Voir dire thus was, in the court’s words, the 

“culmination of a lengthy process.” App. 841a; see 554

F. 3d, at 562, n. 51 (“We consider the . . . questionnaire in 

—————— 

the trial court’s failure to ask these questions must render the defendant’s trial fundamentally unfair.” Id., at 425–426. According appropriate deference to the District Court, we cannot characterize juryselection in this case as fundamentally unfair. Cf. supra, at 8, n. 6 

(same selection process was used in other Enron-related prosecutions). 

21 In addition to focusing on the adequacy of voir dire, our decisions 

have also “take[n] into account . . . other measures [that] were used to 

mitigate the adverse effects of publicity.” Nebraska Press Assn. v. 

Stuart, 427 U. S. 539, 565 (1976). We have noted, for example, the

prophylactic effect of “emphatic and clear instructions on the sworn 

duty of each juror to decide the issues only on evidence presented in

open court.” Id., at 564. Here, the District Court’s instructions were 

unequivocal; the jurors, the court emphasized, were duty bound “to

reach a fair and impartial verdict in this case based solely on the

evidence [they] hear[d] and read in th[e] courtroom.” App. 1026a.

Peremptory challenges, too, “provid[e] protection against [prejudice],” 

United States ex rel. Darcy v. Handy, 351 U. S. 454, 462 (1956); the

District Court, as earlier noted, exercised its discretion to grant the 

defendants two extra peremptories, App. 1020a; see supra, at 7. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 23 

Opinion of the Court 

assessing the quality of voir dire as a whole.”).22 In other 

Enron-related prosecutions, we note, District Courts, after

inspecting venire members’ responses to questionnaires,

completed the jury-selection process within one day. See 

supra, at 8, n. 6.23 

The District Court conducted voir dire, moreover, aware 

of the greater-than-normal need, due to pretrial publicity, 

to ensure against jury bias. At Skilling’s urging, the court

examined each prospective juror individually, thus preventing the spread of any prejudicial information to other 

venire members. See Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 425. To encourage candor, the court repeatedly admonished that

there were “no right and wrong answers to th[e] questions.” E.g., App. 843a. The court denied Skilling’s request for attorney-led voir dire because, in its experience,

potential jurors were “more forthcoming” when the court,

rather than counsel, asked the question. Record 11805. 

The parties, however, were accorded an opportunity to ask 

follow-up questions of every prospective juror brought to 

—————— 

22The dissent’s analysis undervalues the 77-item questionnaire, a

part of the selection process difficult to portray as “cursory,” post, at 30, 

or “anemic,” post, at 35. Notably, the “open-ended questions about

[prospective jurors’] impressions of Enron or Skilling” that the dissent

contends should have been asked, post, at 30, were asked—on the 

questionnaire, see supra, at 5–6, n. 4. Moreover, the District Court 

gave Skilling’s counsel relatively free rein to ask venire members about

their responses on the questionnaire. See, e.g., App. 869a–870a; id., at 

878a, 911a, 953a. The questionnaire plus follow-up opportunity to

interrogate potential jurors surely gave Skilling’s counsel “clear avenue[s] for . . . permissible inquiry.” But see post, at 31, n. 17. See also 

App. 967a (counsel for Skilling) (“Judge, for the record, if I don’t ask 

any questions, it’s because the Court and other counsel have covered

it.”). 23 One of the earlier prosecutions targeted the “Big Five” public accounting firm Arthur Andersen. See supra, at 8, n. 6. Among media

readers and auditors, the name and reputation of Arthur Andersen 

likely sparked no less attention than the name and reputation of

Jeffrey Skilling. Cf. supra, at 16–17, n. 15. 
24 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

the bench for colloquy. Skilling’s counsel declined to ask 

anything of more than half of the venire members questioned individually, including eight eventually selected for

the jury, because, he explained, “the Court and other 

counsel have covered” everything he wanted to know.

App. 967a.

Inspection of the questionnaires and voir dire of the 

individuals who actually served as jurors satisfies us that,

notwithstanding the flaws Skilling lists, the selection 

process successfully secured jurors who were largely untouched by Enron’s collapse.24 Eleven of the seated jurors 

and alternates reported no connection at all to Enron,

while all other jurors reported at most an insubstantial 

link. See, e.g., Supp. App. 101sa (Juror 63) (“I once met a

guy who worked for Enron. I cannot remember his 

name.”).25 As for pretrial publicity, 14 jurors and alternates specifically stated that they had paid scant attention 

to Enron-related news. See, e.g., App. 859a–860a (Juror 

—————— 

24 In considering whether Skilling was tried before an impartial jury, 

the dissent relies extensively on venire members not selected for that 

jury. See, e.g., post, at 6, n. 4 (quoting the questionnaires of ten venire

members; all were excused for cause before voir dire commenced, see 

Record 11891); post, at 7, n. 6 (quoting the questionnaires of 15 venire

members; none sat on Skilling’s jury); post, at 10–11, n. 7 (quoting voir 

dire testimony of six venire members; none sat on Skilling’s jury); post, 

at 28–34 (reporting at length voir dire testimony of Venire Members 17, 

29, 61, 74, 75, and 101; none sat on Skilling’s jury). Statements by

nonjurors do not themselves call into question the adequacy of the juryselection process; elimination of these venire members is indeed one 

indicator that the process fulfilled its function. Critically, as discussed 

infra, at 24–26, the seated jurors showed little knowledge of or interest

in, and were personally unaffected by, Enron’s downfall. 25See also Supp. App. 11sa (Juror 10) (“knew some casual co-workers

that owned Enron stock”); id., at 26sa (Juror 11) (“work[s] with someone who worked at Enron”); id., at 117sa; App. 940a (Juror 64) (two

acquaintances lost money due to Enron’s collapse); Supp. App. 236sa 

(Juror 116) (work colleague lost money as a result of Enron’s 

bankruptcy). 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 25 

Opinion of the Court 

13) (would “[b]asically” start out knowing nothing about 

the case because “I just . . . didn’t follow [it] a whole lot”); 

id., at 969a (Juror 78) (“[Enron] wasn’t anything that I 

was interested in reading [about] in detail. . . . I don’t 

really know much about it.”).26 The remaining two jurors

indicated that nothing in the news influenced their opinions about Skilling.27 

The questionnaires confirmed that, whatever community prejudice existed in Houston generally, Skilling’s 

jurors were not under its sway.28 Although many ex­

—————— 

26See also App. 850a (Juror 10) (“I haven’t followed [Enron-related 

news] in detail or to any extreme at all.”); id., at 856a (Juror 11) (did

not “get into the details of [the Enron case]” and “just kind of tune[d] 

[it] out”); id., at 873a (Juror 20) (“I was out of [the] state when [Enron

collapsed], and then personal circumstances kept me from paying much 

attention.”); id., at 892a (Juror 38) (recalled “nothing in particular”

about media coverage); id., at 913a (Juror 50) (“I would hear it on the

news and just let it filter in and out.”); id., at 935a (Juror 63) (“I don’t 

really pay attention.”); id., at 940a–941a (Juror 64) (had “[n]ot really” 

been keeping up with and did not recall any news about Enron); id., at 

971a (Juror 84) (had not read “anything at all about Enron” because he

did not “want to read that stuff” (internal quotation marks omitted)); 

id., at 983a (Juror 90) (“seldom” read the Houston Chronicle and did

not watch news programs); id., at 995a–996a (Juror 99) (did not read

newspapers or watch the news; “I don’t know the details on what [this

case] is or what made it what it is”); id., at 1010a (Juror 113) (“never 

really paid that much attention [to] it”); id., at 1013a (Juror 116) (had

“rea[d] a number of different articles,” but “since it hasn’t affected me 

personally,” could not “specifically recall” any of them). 27 Id., at 944a (Juror 67) (had not read the Houston Chronicle in the 

three months preceding the trial and volunteered: “I don’t form an

opinion based on what . . . I hear on the news”); id., at 974a–975a 

(Juror 87) (had not “formed any opinions” about Skilling’s guilt from

news stories). 28As the D. C. Circuit observed, reviewing the impact on jurors of 

media coverage of the Watergate scandal, “[t]his may come as a surprise to lawyers and judges, but it is simply a fact of life that matters

which interest them may be less fascinating to the public generally.” 

United States v. Haldeman, 559 F. 2d 31, 62–63, n. 37 (1976). See 

also In re Charlotte Observer, 882 F. 2d 850, 855–856 (CA4 1989) 
26 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

pressed sympathy for victims of Enron’s bankruptcy and 

speculated that greed contributed to the corporation’s

collapse, these sentiments did not translate into animus

toward Skilling. When asked whether they “ha[d] an 

opinion about . . . Jeffrey Skilling,” none of the seated 

jurors and alternates checked the “yes” box.29 And in 

response to the question whether “any opinion [they] may

have formed regarding Enron or [Skilling] [would] prevent” their impartial consideration of the evidence at trial,

every juror—despite options to mark “yes” or “unsure”—

instead checked “no.” 

The District Court, Skilling asserts, should not have

“accept[ed] at face value jurors’ promises of fairness.” 

Brief for Petitioner 37. In Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S., at 

727–728, Skilling points out, we found actual prejudice 

despite jurors’ assurances that they could be impartial. 

Brief for Petitioner 26. JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, in turn, 

repeatedly relies on Irvin, which she regards as closely 

analogous to this case. See post, at 23 (opinion concurring

in part and dissenting in part) (hereinafter dissent). See 

also, e.g., post, at 15–16, 33, 35, 39–40. We disagree with

that characterization of Irvin. 

The facts of Irvin are worlds apart from those presented 

—————— 

(“[R]emarkably in the eyes of many,” “[c]ases such as those involving 

the Watergate defendants, the Abscam defendants, and . . . John 

DeLorean, all characterized by massive pretrial media reportage and 

commentary, nevertheless proceeded to trial with juries which . . . were

satisfactorily disclosed to have been unaffected (indeed, in some instances blissfully unaware of or untouched) by that publicity.”); Brief 

for ABC, Inc., et al. as Amici Curiae 25–31 (describing other examples). 29One juror did not check any box, explaining that she lived in another State when Enron went bankrupt and therefore “was not fully

aware of all the facts regarding Enron’s fall [and] the media coverage.”

Supp. App. 62sa (Juror 20). Two other jurors, Juror 10 and Juror 63,

indicated in answer to a different question that they had an opinion 

about Skilling’s guilt, but voir dire established they could be impartial. 

See infra, at 32, and 33, n. 33. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 27 

Opinion of the Court 

here. Leslie Irvin stood accused of a brutal murder and 

robbery spree in a small rural community. 366 U. S., at 

719. In the months before Irvin’s trial, “a barrage” of 

publicity was “unleashed against him,” including reports

of his confessions to the slayings and robberies. Id., at 

725–726. This Court’s description of the media coverage 

in Irvin reveals why the dissent’s “best case” is not an apt

comparison: 

“[S]tories revealed the details of [Irvin’s] background,

including a reference to crimes committed when a juvenile, his convictions for arson almost 20 years previously, for burglary and by a court-martial on AWOL

charges during the war. He was accused of being a

parole violator. The headlines announced his police 

line-up identification, that he faced a lie detector test,

had been placed at the scene of the crime and that the 

six murders were solved but [he] refused to confess. 

Finally, they announced [Irvin’s] confession to the six 

murders and the fact of his indictment for four of 

them in Indiana. They reported [Irvin’s] offer to plead

guilty if promised a 99-year sentence, but also the determination, on the other hand, of the prosecutor to 

secure the death penalty, and that [Irvin] had confessed to 24 burglaries (the modus operandi of these 

robberies was compared to that of the murders and 

the similarity noted). One story dramatically relayed 

the promise of a sheriff to devote his life to securing 

[Irvin’s] execution . . . . Another characterized [Irvin] 

as remorseless and without conscience but also as 

having been found sane by a court-appointed panel of

doctors. In many of the stories [Irvin] was described

as the ‘confessed slayer of six,’ a parole violator and 

fraudulent-check artist. [Irvin’s] court-appointed

counsel was quoted as having received ‘much criticism

over being Irvin’s counsel’ and it was pointed out, by 
28 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

way of excusing the attorney, that he would be subject 

to disbarment should he refuse to represent Irvin. On 

the day before the trial the newspapers carried the 

story that Irvin had orally admitted [to] the murder of 

[one victim] as well as ‘the robbery-murder of [a second individual]; the murder of [a third individual],

and the slaughter of three members of [a different

family].’” Id., at 725–726. 

“[N]ewspapers in which the[se] stories appeared were

delivered regularly to 95% of the dwellings in” the county

where the trial occurred, which had a population of only

30,000; “radio and TV stations, which likewise blanketed 

that county, also carried extensive newscasts covering the 

same incidents.” Id., at 725. 

 Reviewing Irvin’s fair-trial claim, this Court noted that 

“the pattern of deep and bitter prejudice” in the community “was clearly reflected in the sum total of the voir 

dire”: “370 prospective jurors or almost 90% of those examined on the point . . . entertained some opinion as to guilt,” 

and “[8] out of the 12 [jurors] thought [Irvin] was guilty.” 

Id., at 727 (internal quotation marks omitted). Although

these jurors declared they could be impartial, we held 

that, “[w]ith his life at stake, it is not requiring too much 

that [Irvin] be tried in an atmosphere undisturbed by so

huge a wave of public passion and by a jury other than one

in which two-thirds of the members admit, before hearing

any testimony, to possessing a belief in his guilt.” Id., at 

728. 

In this case, as noted, supra, at 17, news stories about 

Enron contained nothing resembling the horrifying information rife in reports about Irvin’s rampage of robberies 

and murders. Of key importance, Houston shares little in

common with the rural community in which Irvin’s trial

proceeded, and circulation figures for Houston media 

sources were far lower than the 95% saturation level 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 29 

Opinion of the Court 

recorded in Irvin, see App. to Brief for United States 15a 

(“The Houston Chronicle . . . reaches less than one-third of 

occupied households in Houston.” (internal quotation

marks omitted)). Skilling’s seated jurors, moreover, exhibited nothing like the display of bias shown in Irvin. See 

supra, at 24–26 (noting, inter alia, that none of Skilling’s

jurors answered “yes” when asked if they “ha[d] an opinion 

about . . . Skilling”). See also post, at 19 (dissent) (distinguishing Mu’Min from Irvin on similar bases: the “offense 

occurred in [a large] metropolitan . . . area,” media “coverage was not as pervasive as in Irvin and did not contain 

the same sort of damaging information,” and “the seated 

jurors uniformly disclaimed having ever formed an opinion 

about the case” (internal quotation marks omitted)). In 

light of these large differences, the District Court had far 

less reason than did the trial court in Irvin to discredit 

jurors’ promises of fairness. 

The District Court, moreover, did not simply take venire

members who proclaimed their impartiality at their 

word.30 As noted, all of Skilling’s jurors had already affirmed on their questionnaires that they would have no 

trouble basing a verdict only on the evidence at trial.

Nevertheless, the court followed up with each individually

to uncover concealed bias. This face-to-face opportunity to

gauge demeanor and credibility, coupled with information

from the questionnaires regarding jurors’ backgrounds,

opinions, and sources of news, gave the court a sturdy

foundation to assess fitness for jury service. See 554 F. 3d, 

at 562 (The District Court made “thorough” credibility 

determinations that “requir[ed] more than just the [venire 

—————— 

30The court viewed with skepticism, for example, Venire Member 

104’s promises that she could “abide by law,” follow the court’s instructions, and find Skilling not guilty if the Government did not prove its

case, App. 1004a; “I have to gauge . . . demeanor, all the answers she

gave me,” the court stated, and “[s]he persuaded me that she could not

be fair and impartial, so she’s excused,” id., at 1006a. 
30 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

members’] statements that [they] could be fair.”). The 

jury’s not-guilty verdict on nine insider-trading counts

after nearly five days of deliberation, meanwhile, suggests 

the court’s assessments were accurate. See United States 

v. Haldeman, 559 F. 2d 31, 60, n. 28 (CADC 1976). Skilling, we conclude, failed to show that his voir dire fell short 

of constitutional requirements.31 

3 

Skilling also singles out several jurors in particular and 

contends they were openly biased. See United States v. 

Martinez-Salazar, 528 U. S. 304, 316 (2000) (“[T]he seating of any juror who should have been dismissed for cause 

. . . require[s] reversal.”). In reviewing claims of this type,

the deference due to district courts is at its pinnacle: “A 

trial court’s findings of juror impartiality may be overturned only for manifest error.” Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 428 

(internal quotation marks omitted). Skilling, moreover,

unsuccessfully challenged only one of the seated jurors for 

cause, “strong evidence that he was convinced the [other]

jurors were not biased and had not formed any opinions as

to his guilt.” Beck v. Washington, 369 U. S. 541, 557–558 

(1962). With these considerations in mind, we turn to 

Skilling’s specific allegations of juror partiality. 

—————— 

31Skilling emphasizes that voir dire did not weed out every juror who

suffered from Enron’s collapse because the District Court failed to grant 

his for-cause challenge to Venire Member 29, whose retirement fund 

lost $50,000 due to ripple effects from the decline in the value of Enron 

stock. App. 880a. Critically, however, Venire Member 29 did not sit on 

Skilling’s jury: Instead, Skilling struck her using a peremptory challenge. “[I]f [a] defendant elects to cure [a trial judge’s erroneous forcause ruling] by exercising a peremptory challenge, and is subsequently 

convicted by a jury on which no biased juror sat,” we have held, “he has 

not been deprived of any . . . constitutional right.” United States v. 

Martinez-Salazar, 528 U. S. 304, 307 (2000). Indeed, the “use [of] a 

peremptory challenge to effect an instantaneous cure of the error” 

exemplifies “a principal reason for peremptories: to help secure the

constitutional guarantee of trial by an impartial jury.” Id., at 316. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 31 

Opinion of the Court 

Skilling contends that Juror 11—the only seated juror 

he challenged for cause—“expressed the most obvious 

bias.” Brief for Petitioner 35. See also post, at 36 (dissent). Juror 11 stated that “greed on Enron’s part” triggered the company’s bankruptcy and that corporate executives, driven by avarice, “walk a line that stretches

sometimes the legality of something.” App. 854a–855a. 

But, as the Fifth Circuit accurately summarized, Juror 11 

“had ‘no idea’ whether Skilling had ‘crossed that line,’ 

and he ‘didn’t say that’ every CEO is probably a crook.

He also asserted that he could be fair and require the 

government to prove its case, that he did not believe 

everything he read in the paper, that he did not ‘get 

into the details’ of the Enron coverage, that he did not 

watch television, and that Enron was ‘old news.’” 554 

F. 3d, at 563–564. 

Despite his criticism of greed, Juror 11 remarked that

Skilling “earned [his] salar[y],” App. 857a, and said he

would have “no problem” telling his co-worker, who had 

lost 401(k) funds due to Enron’s collapse, that the jury 

voted to acquit, if that scenario came to pass, id., at 854a. 

The District Court, noting that it had “looked [Juror 11] in

the eye and . . . heard all his [answers],” found his assertions of impartiality credible. Id., at 858a; cf. supra, at 29, 

n. 30. We agree with the Court of Appeals that “[t]he

express finding that Juror 11 was fair is not reversible 

error.” 554 F. 3d, at 564.32 

Skilling also objected at trial to the seating of six specific jurors whom, he said, he would have excluded had he 

not already exhausted his peremptory challenges. See 

supra, at 8–9. Juror 20, he observes, “said she was ‘angry’ 

about Enron’s collapse and that she, too, had been ‘forced 

—————— 

32Skilling’s trial counsel and jury consultants apparently did not

regard Juror 11 as so “obvious[ly] bias[ed],” Brief for Petitioner 35, as to

warrant exercise of a peremptory challenge. 
32 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

to forfeit [her] own 401(k) funds to survive layoffs.’” Reply

Brief 13. But Juror 20 made clear during voir dire that 

she did not “personally blame” Skilling for the loss of her 

retirement account. App. 875a. Having not “pa[id] much

attention” to Enron-related news, she “quite honestly” did 

not “have enough information to know” whether Skilling 

was probably guilty, id., at 873a, and she “th[ought] [she] 

could be” fair and impartial, id., at 875a. In light of these 

answers, the District Court did not commit manifest error 

in finding Juror 20 fit for jury service.

The same is true of Juror 63, who, Skilling points out, 

wrote on her questionnaire “that [Skilling] ‘probably knew

[he] w[as] breaking the law.’” Reply Brief 13. During voir 

dire, however, Juror 63 insisted that she did not “really 

have an opinion [about Skilling’s guilt] either way,” App. 

936a; she did not “know what [she] was thinking” when

she completed the questionnaire, but she “absolutely” 

presumed Skilling innocent and confirmed her understanding that the Government would “have to prove” his 

guilt, id., at 937a. In response to follow-up questions from 

Skilling’s counsel, she again stated she would not presume 

that Skilling violated any laws and could “[a]bsolutely”

give her word that she could be fair. Id., at 937a–938a. 

“Jurors,” we have recognized, “cannot be expected invariably to express themselves carefully or even consistently.” 

Yount, 467 U. S., at 1039. See also id., at 1040 (“It is here 

that the federal [appellate] court’s deference must operate, 

for while the cold record arouses some concern, only the 

trial judge could tell which of these answers was said with

the greatest comprehension and certainty.”). From where 

we sit, we cannot conclude that Juror 63 was biased. 

The four remaining jurors Skilling said he would have

excluded with extra peremptory strikes exhibited no sign

of prejudice we can discern. See App. 891a–892a (Juror 

38) (remembered no media coverage about Enron and said

nothing in her experience would prevent her from being 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 33 

Opinion of the Court 

fair and impartial); Supp. App. 131sa–133sa, 136sa (Juror 

67) (had no connection to Enron and no anger about its

collapse); App. 969a (Juror 78) (did not “know much about” 

Enron); Supp. App. 165sa, App. 971a (Juror 84) (had not 

heard or read anything about Enron and said she did not 

“know enough to answer” the question whether she was 

angry about the company’s demise). Skilling’s counsel

declined to ask follow-up questions of any of these jurors

and, indeed, told Juror 84 he had nothing to ask because

she “gave all the right answers.” Id., at 972a. Whatever 

Skilling’s reasons for wanting to strike these four individuals from his jury, he cannot credibly assert they displayed a disqualifying bias.33 

In sum, Skilling failed to establish that a presumption 

of prejudice arose or that actual bias infected the jury that

tried him. Jurors, the trial court correctly comprehended, 

need not enter the box with empty heads in order to determine the facts impartially. “It is sufficient if the juror[s] can lay aside [their] impression[s] or opinion[s] and 

render a verdict based on the evidence presented in court.” 

Irvin, 366 U. S., at 723. Taking account of the full record, 

rather than incomplete exchanges selectively culled from 

it, we find no cause to upset the lower courts’ judgment

that Skilling’s jury met that measure. We therefore affirm 

the Fifth Circuit’s ruling that Skilling received a fair 

trial.34 

—————— 

33Although Skilling raised no objection to Juror 10 and Juror 87 at

trial, his briefs in this Court impugn their impartiality. Brief for 

Petitioner 14–15; Reply Brief 13. Even if we allowed these tardy pleas, 

the voir dire testimony of the two jurors gives sufficient assurance that

they were unbiased. See, e.g., App. 850a–853a (Juror 10) (did not

prejudge Skilling’s guilt, indicated he could follow the court’s instructions and make the Government prove its case, stated he could be fair

to Skilling, and said he would “judge on the facts”); id., at 974a (Juror

87) (had “not formed an opinion” on whether Skilling was guilty and

affirmed she could adhere to the presumption of innocence). 34Our decisions have rightly set a high bar for allegations of juror 
34 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

III 

We next consider whether Skilling’s conspiracy conviction was premised on an improper theory of honestservices wire fraud. The honest-services statute, §1346,

Skilling maintains, is unconstitutionally vague. Alternatively, he contends that his conduct does not fall within

the statute’s compass. 

A 

To place Skilling’s constitutional challenge in context, 

we first review the origin and subsequent application of 

the honest-services doctrine. 

1 

Enacted in 1872, the original mail-fraud provision, the 

predecessor of the modern-day mail- and wire-fraud laws, 

proscribed, without further elaboration, use of the mails to

advance “any scheme or artifice to defraud.” See McNally 

v. United States, 483 U. S. 350, 356 (1987). In 1909, Congress amended the statute to prohibit, as it does today,

“any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money 

or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, 

representations, or promises.” §1341 (emphasis added); see 

id., at 357–358. Emphasizing Congress’ disjunctive phrasing, the Courts of Appeals, one after the other, interpreted

the term “scheme or artifice to defraud” to include deprivations not only of money or property, but also of intangible rights.

In an opinion credited with first presenting the intangi­

—————— 

prejudice due to pretrial publicity. See, e.g., Mu’Min, 500 U. S. 415; 

Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025 (1984); Murphy v. Florida, 421 U. S. 

794 (1975). News coverage of civil and criminal trials of public interest 

conveys to society at large how our justice system operates. And it is a 

premise of that system that jurors will set aside their preconceptions

when they enter the courtroom and decide cases based on the evidence 

presented. Trial judges generally take care so to instruct jurors, and 

the District Court did just that in this case. App. 1026a. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 35 

Opinion of the Court 

ble-rights theory, Shushan v. United States, 117 F. 2d 110 

(1941), the Fifth Circuit reviewed the mail-fraud prosecution of a public official who allegedly accepted bribes from

entrepreneurs in exchange for urging city action beneficial 

to the bribe payers. “It is not true that because the [city] 

was to make and did make a saving by the operations

there could not have been an intent to defraud,” the Court 

of Appeals maintained. Id., at 119. “A scheme to get a 

public contract on more favorable terms than would likely 

be got otherwise by bribing a public official,” the court 

observed, “would not only be a plan to commit the crime of 

bribery, but would also be a scheme to defraud the public.” 

Id., at 115. 

The Fifth Circuit’s opinion in Shushan stimulated the 

development of an “honest-services” doctrine. Unlike 

fraud in which the victim’s loss of money or property

supplied the defendant’s gain, with one the mirror image

of the other, see, e.g., United States v. Starr, 816 F. 2d 94, 

101 (CA2 1987), the honest-services theory targeted corruption that lacked similar symmetry. While the offender 

profited, the betrayed party suffered no deprivation of 

money or property; instead, a third party, who had not 

been deceived, provided the enrichment. For example, if a

city mayor (the offender) accepted a bribe from a third 

party in exchange for awarding that party a city contract,

yet the contract terms were the same as any that could

have been negotiated at arm’s length, the city (the betrayed party) would suffer no tangible loss. Cf. McNally, 

483 U. S., at 360. Even if the scheme occasioned a money 

or property gain for the betrayed party, courts reasoned,

actionable harm lay in the denial of that party’s right to

the offender’s “honest services.” See, e.g., United States v. 

Dixon, 536 F. 2d 1388, 1400 (CA2 1976).

“Most often these cases . . . involved bribery of public

officials,” United States v. Bohonus, 628 F. 2d 1167, 1171 

(CA9 1980), but courts also recognized private-sector 
36 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

honest-services fraud. In perhaps the earliest application 

of the theory to private actors, a District Court, reviewing

a bribery scheme, explained: 

“When one tampers with [the employer-employee] relationship for the purpose of causing the employee to 

breach his duty [to his employer,] he in effect is defrauding the employer of a lawful right. The actual 

deception that is practised is in the continued representation of the employee to the employer that he is

honest and loyal to the employer’s interests.” United 

States v. Procter & Gamble Co., 47 F. Supp. 676, 678 

(Mass. 1942). 

Over time, “[a]n increasing number of courts” recognized

that “a recreant employee”—public or private—“c[ould] be

prosecuted under [the mail-fraud statute] if he breache[d] 

his allegiance to his employer by accepting bribes or kickbacks in the course of his employment,” United States v. 

McNeive, 536 F. 2d 1245, 1249 (CA8 1976); by 1982, all

Courts of Appeals had embraced the honest-services theory of fraud, Hurson, Limiting the Federal Mail Fraud 

Statute—A Legislative Approach, 20 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 

423, 456 (1983).35 

2 

In 1987, this Court, in McNally v. United States, 

stopped the development of the intangible-rights doctrine

in its tracks. McNally involved a state officer who, in 

selecting Kentucky’s insurance agent, arranged to procure 

a share of the agent’s commissions via kickbacks paid to 

—————— 

35 In addition to upholding honest-services prosecutions, courts also 

increasingly approved use of the mail-fraud statute to attack corruption 

that deprived victims of other kinds of intangible rights, including 

election fraud and privacy violations. See, e.g., Cleveland v. United 

States, 531 U. S. 12, 18, n. 2 (2000); McNally v. United States, 483 U. S. 

350, 362–364, and nn. 1–4 (1987) (STEVENS, J., dissenting). 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 37 

Opinion of the Court 

companies the official partially controlled. 483 U. S., at 

360. The prosecutor did not charge that, “in the absence of 

the alleged scheme[,] the Commonwealth would have paid 

a lower premium or secured better insurance.” Ibid. Instead, the prosecutor maintained that the kickback

scheme “defraud[ed] the citizens and government of Kentucky of their right to have the Commonwealth’s affairs 

conducted honestly.” Id., at 353. 

We held that the scheme did not qualify as mail fraud.

“Rather than constru[ing] the statute in a manner that 

leaves its outer boundaries ambiguous and involves the

Federal Government in setting standards of disclosure and 

good government for local and state officials,” we read the

statute “as limited in scope to the protection of property 

rights.” Id., at 360. “If Congress desires to go further,” we

stated, “it must speak more clearly.” Ibid. 

3 

Congress responded swiftly. The following year, it 

enacted a new statute “specifically to cover one of the 

‘intangible rights’ that lower courts had protected . . . prior 

to McNally: ‘the intangible right of honest services.’” 

Cleveland v. United States, 531 U. S. 12, 19–20 (2000). In 

full, the honest-services statute stated: 

“For the purposes of th[e] chapter [of the United 

States Code that prohibits, inter alia, mail fraud, 

§1341, and wire fraud, §1343], the term ‘scheme or

artifice to defraud’ includes a scheme or artifice to 

deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” §1346. 

B 

Congress, Skilling charges, reacted quickly but not 

clearly: He asserts that §1346 is unconstitutionally vague.

To satisfy due process, “a penal statute [must] define the

criminal offense [1] with sufficient definiteness that ordi­
38 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

nary people can understand what conduct is prohibited 

and [2] in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and 

discriminatory enforcement.” Kolender v. Lawson, 461 

U. S. 352, 357 (1983). The void-for-vagueness doctrine 

embraces these requirements. 

According to Skilling, §1346 meets neither of the two 

due process essentials. First, the phrase “the intangible

right of honest services,” he contends, does not adequately

define what behavior it bars. Brief for Petitioner 38–39. 

Second, he alleges, §1346’s “standardless sweep allows

policemen, prosecutors, and juries to pursue their personal 

predilections,” thereby “facilitat[ing] opportunistic and 

arbitrary prosecutions.” Id., at 44 (quoting Kolender, 461 

U. S., at 358). 

In urging invalidation of §1346, Skilling swims against 

our case law’s current, which requires us, if we can, to

construe, not condemn, Congress’ enactments. See, e.g., 

Civil Service Comm’n v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548, 571 

(1973). See also United States v. National Dairy Products 

Corp., 372 U. S. 29, 32 (1963) (stressing, in response to a

vagueness challenge, “[t]he strong presumptive validity

that attaches to an Act of Congress”). Alert to §1346’s 

potential breadth, the Courts of Appeals have divided on 

how best to interpret the statute.36 Uniformly, however,

they have declined to throw out the statute as irremedia­

—————— 

36Courts have disagreed about whether §1346 prosecutions must be

based on a violation of state law, compare, e.g., United States v. Brumley, 116 F. 3d 728, 734–735 (CA5 1997) (en banc), with, e.g., United 

States v. Weyhrauch, 548 F. 3d 1237, 1245–1246 (CA9 2008), vacated 

and remanded, post, p. ___; whether a defendant must contemplate that 

the victim suffer economic harm, compare, e.g., United States v. SunDiamond Growers of Cal., 138 F. 3d 961, 973 (CADC 1998), with, e.g., 

United States v. Black, 530 F. 3d 596, 600–602 (CA7 2008), vacated and 

remanded, post, p. ___; and whether the defendant must act in pursuit 

of private gain, compare, e.g., United States v. Bloom, 149 F. 3d 649, 

655 (CA7 1998), with, e.g., United States v. Panarella, 277 F. 3d 678, 

692 (CA3 2002). 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 39 

Opinion of the Court 

bly vague.37 

We agree that §1346 should be construed rather than

invalidated. First, we look to the doctrine developed in 

pre-McNally cases in an endeavor to ascertain the meaning of the phrase “the intangible right of honest services.”

Second, to preserve what Congress certainly intended the 

statute to cover, we pare that body of precedent down to 

its core: In the main, the pre-McNally cases involved 

fraudulent schemes to deprive another of honest services

through bribes or kickbacks supplied by a third party who 

had not been deceived. Confined to these paramount 

applications, §1346 presents no vagueness problem. 

1 

There is no doubt that Congress intended §1346 to refer 

to and incorporate the honest-services doctrine recognized 

in Court of Appeals’ decisions before McNally derailed the 

intangible-rights theory of fraud. See Brief for Petitioner 

39; Brief for United States 37–38; post, at 2, 8 (SCALIA, J., 

concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Congress 

enacted §1346 on the heels of McNally and drafted the 

statute using that decision’s terminology. See 483 U. S., 

at 355 (“intangible righ[t]”); id., at 362 (STEVENS, J., dissenting) (“right to . . . honest services”).38 As the Second 

—————— 

37See, e.g., United States v. Rybicki, 354 F. 3d 124, 132 (CA2 2003) 

(en banc); United States v. Hausmann, 345 F. 3d 952, 958 (CA7 2003); 

United States v. Welch, 327 F. 3d 1081, 1109, n. 29 (CA10 2003); United 

States v. Frega, 179 F. 3d 793, 803 (CA9 1999); Brumley, 116 F. 3d, at 

732–733; United States v. Frost, 125 F. 3d 346, 370–372 (CA6 1997); 

United States v. Waymer, 55 F. 3d 564, 568–569 (CA11 1995); United 

States v. Bryan, 58 F. 3d 933, 941 (CA4 1995). 38Although verbal formulations varied slightly, the words employed

by the Courts of Appeals prior to McNally described the same concept: 

“honest services,” e.g., United States v. Bruno, 809 F. 2d 1097, 1105 

(CA5 1987); “honest and faithful services,” e.g., United States v. Brown, 

540 F. 2d 364, 374 (CA8 1976); and “faithful and honest services,” e.g., 

United States v. Diggs, 613 F. 2d 988, 998 (CADC 1979). 
40 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

Circuit observed in its leading analysis of §1346: 

“The definite article ‘the’ suggests that ‘intangible 

right of honest services’ had a specific meaning to 

Congress when it enacted the statute—Congress was 

recriminalizing mail- and wire-fraud schemes to deprive others of that ‘intangible right of honest services,’ which had been protected before McNally, not 

all intangible rights of honest services whatever they 

might be thought to be.” United States v. Rybicki, 354 

F. 3d 124, 137–138 (2003) (en banc).39 

2 

Satisfied that Congress, by enacting §1346, “meant to

reinstate the body of pre-McNally honest-services law,” 

post, at 8 (opinion of SCALIA, J.), we have surveyed that 

case law. See infra, at 42–44, 46. In parsing the Courts of

Appeals decisions, we acknowledge that Skilling’s vagueness challenge has force, for honest-services decisions 

preceding McNally were not models of clarity or consistency. See Brief for Petitioner 39–42 (describing divisions 

of opinions). See also post, at 3–7 (opinion of SCALIA, J.). 

While the honest-services cases preceding McNally dominantly and consistently applied the fraud statute to bribery and kickback schemes—schemes that were the basis of

most honest-services prosecutions—there was considerable disarray over the statute’s application to conduct 

outside that core category. In light of this disarray, Skilling urges us, as he urged the Fifth Circuit, to invalidate

the statute in toto. Brief for Petitioner 48 (Section 1346 “is 

—————— 

39We considered a similar Court-Congress interplay in McDermott 

Int’l, Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U. S. 337 (1991), which involved the interpretation of the term “seaman” in the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. App. §688

(2000 ed.). The Act, we recognized, “respond[ed] directly to” our decision in The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158 (1903), and “adopt[ed] without

further elaboration the term used in” that case, so we “assume[d] that

the Jones Act use[d] ‘seaman’ in the same way.” 498 U. S., at 342. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 41 

Opinion of the Court 

intolerably and unconstitutionally vague.”); Brief of Defendant-Appellant Jeffrey K. Skilling in No. 06–20885 

(CA5), p. 65, n. 21 (“[S]ection 1346 should be invalidated 

as unlawfully vague on its face.”).

It has long been our practice, however, before striking

a federal statute as impermissibly vague, to consider 

whether the prescription is amenable to a limiting construction. See, e.g., Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 

657 (1895) (“The elementary rule is that every reasonable 

construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute 

from unconstitutionality.” (emphasis added)). See also 

Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312, 330–331 (1988); Schneider v. 

Smith, 390 U. S. 17, 26 (1968).40 We have accordingly

instructed “the federal courts . . . to avoid constitutional 

difficulties by [adopting a limiting interpretation] if such a 

construction is fairly possible.” Boos, 485 U. S., at 331; see 

United States v. Harriss, 347 U. S. 612, 618 (1954) (“[I]f 

—————— 

40 “This cardinal principle has its roots in Chief Justice Marshall’s 

opinion for the Court in Murray v. The Charming Betsy, 2 Cranch 64, 

118 (1804), and has for so long been applied by this Court that it is 

beyond debate.” Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast 

Building & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575 (1988). See, e.g., 

New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747, 769, n. 24 (1982); NLRB v. Catholic 

Bishop of Chicago, 440 U. S. 490, 500–501 (1979); United States v. 

Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U. S. 363, 368–370 (1971); Machinists v. 

Street, 367 U. S. 740, 749–750 (1961); United States v. Rumely, 345 

U. S. 41, 45 (1953); Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 517 (1948); 

Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932); Lucas v. Alexander, 279 

U. S. 573, 577 (1929); Richmond Screw Anchor Co. v. United States, 275 

U. S. 331, 346 (1928); Panama R. Co. v. Johnson, 264 U. S. 375, 390 

(1924); United States ex rel. Attorney General v. Delaware & Hudson 

Co., 213 U. S. 366, 407–408 (1909); United States v. Coombs, 12 Pet. 72, 

76 (1838) (Story, J.); Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 448–449 (1830) 

(Story, J.). Cf. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 573 (1942)

(statute made it criminal to address “any offensive, derisive, or annoying word” to any person in a public place; vagueness obviated by statecourt construction of the statute to cover only words having “a direct

tendency to cause acts of violence” by the addressee (internal quotation 

marks omitted)). 
42 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

the general class of offenses to which the statute is directed is plainly within its terms, the statute will not be

struck down as vague . . . . And if this general class of

offenses can be made constitutionally definite by a reasonable construction of the statute, this Court is under a duty

to give the statute that construction.”). 

Arguing against any limiting construction, Skilling 

contends that it is impossible to identify a salvageable 

honest-services core; “the pre-McNally caselaw,” he asserts, “is a hodgepodge of oft-conflicting holdings” that are

“hopelessly unclear.” Brief for Petitioner 39 (some capitalization and italics omitted). We have rejected an argument of the same tenor before. In Civil Service Comm’n v. 

Letter Carriers, federal employees challenged a provision 

of the Hatch Act that incorporated earlier decisions of the 

United States Civil Service Commission enforcing a similar law. “[T]he several thousand adjudications of the Civil 

Service Commission,” the employees maintained, were “an 

impenetrable jungle”—“undiscoverable, inconsistent, [and] 

incapable of yielding any meaningful rules to govern

present or future conduct.” 413 U. S., at 571. Mindful 

that “our task [wa]s not to destroy the Act if we c[ould],

but to construe it,” we held that “the rules that had 

evolved over the years from repeated adjudications were

subject to sufficiently clear and summary statement.” Id., 

at 571–572. 

A similar observation may be made here. Although

some applications of the pre-McNally honest-services 

doctrine occasioned disagreement among the Courts of

Appeals, these cases do not cloud the doctrine’s solid core: 

The “vast majority” of the honest-services cases involved

offenders who, in violation of a fiduciary duty, participated

in bribery or kickback schemes. United States v. Runnels, 

833 F. 2d 1183, 1187 (CA6 1987); see Brief for United 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 43 

Opinion of the Court 

States 42, and n. 4 (citing dozens of examples).41 Indeed, 

the McNally case itself, which spurred Congress to enact 

§1346, presented a paradigmatic kickback fact pattern.

483 U. S., at 352–353, 360. Congress’ reversal of McNally

and reinstatement of the honest-services doctrine, we 

conclude, can and should be salvaged by confining its

scope to the core pre-McNally applications. 

As already noted, supra, at 34–36, the honest-services 

doctrine had its genesis in prosecutions involving bribery

allegations. See Shushan, 117 F. 2d, at 115 (public sector); Procter & Gamble Co., 47 F. Supp., at 678 (private 

sector). See also United States v. Orsburn, 525 F. 3d 543, 

546 (CA7 2008). Both before McNally and after §1346’s

enactment, Courts of Appeals described schemes involving 

bribes or kickbacks as “core . . . honest services fraud 

precedents,” United States v. Czubinski, 106 F. 3d 1069, 

1077 (CA1 1997); “paradigm case[s],” United States v. 

deVegter, 198 F. 3d 1324, 1327–1328 (CA11 1999); “[t]he

most obvious form of honest services fraud,” United States 

v. Carbo, 572 F. 3d 112, 115 (CA3 2009); “core misconduct 

covered by the statute,” United States v. Urciuoli, 513 

F. 3d 290, 294 (CA1 2008); “most [of the] honest services

cases,” United States v. Sorich, 523 F. 3d 702, 707 (CA7 

2008); “typical,” United States v. Brown, 540 F. 2d 364, 

374 (CA8 1976); “clear-cut,” United States v. Mandel, 591 

F. 2d 1347, 1363 (CA4 1979); and “uniformly . . . 

—————— 

41 JUSTICE SCALIA emphasizes divisions in the Courts of Appeals regarding the source and scope of fiduciary duties. Post, at 3–5. But 

these debates were rare in bribe and kickback cases. The existence of a 

fiduciary relationship, under any definition of that term, was usually 

beyond dispute; examples include public official-public, see, e.g., United 

States v. Mandel, 591 F. 2d 1347 (CA4 1979); employee-employer, see, 

e.g., United States v. Bohonus, 628 F. 2d 1167 (CA9 1980); and union 

official-union members, see, e.g., United States v. Price, 788 F. 2d 234 

(CA4 1986). See generally Chiarella v. United States, 445 U. S. 222, 

233 (1980) (noting the “established doctrine that [a fiduciary] duty 

arises from a specific relationship between two parties”). 
44 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

cover[ed],” United States v. Paradies, 98 F. 3d 1266, 1283, 

n. 30 (CA11 1996). See also Tr. of Oral Arg. 43 (counsel

for the Government) (“[T]he bulk of pre-McNally honest 

services cases” entailed bribes or kickbacks); Brief for 

Petitioner 49 (“Bribes and kickbacks were the paradigm 

[pre-McNally] cases,” constituting “[t]he overwhelming 

majority of prosecutions for honest services fraud.”). 

In view of this history, there is no doubt that Congress

intended §1346 to reach at least bribes and kickbacks. 

Reading the statute to proscribe a wider range of offensive 

conduct, we acknowledge, would raise the due process

concerns underlying the vagueness doctrine.42 To preserve

the statute without transgressing constitutional limitations, we now hold that §1346 criminalizes only the bribeand-kickback core of the pre-McNally case law.43 

—————— 

42Apprised that a broader reading of §1346 could render the statute 

impermissibly vague, Congress, we believe, would have drawn the 

honest-services line, as we do now, at bribery and kickback schemes.

Cf. Levin v. Commerce Energy, Inc., 560 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip op., 

at 11) (“[C]ourts may attempt . . . to implement what the legislature 

would have willed had it been apprised of the constitutional infirmity.”); United States v. Booker, 543 U. S. 220, 246 (2005) (“We seek to 

determine what ‘Congress would have intended’ in light of the Court’s

constitutional holding.”). 43 JUSTICE SCALIA charges that our construction of §1346 is “not interpretation but invention.” Post, at 8. Stating that he “know[s] of no 

precedent for . . . ‘paring down’ ” the pre-McNally case law to its core, 

ibid., he contends that the Court today “wield[s] a power we long ago 

abjured: the power to define new federal crimes,” post, at 1. See also, 

e.g., post, at 9, 10, 11. As noted supra, at 41–42, and n. 40, cases 

“paring down” federal statutes to avoid constitutional shoals are legion.

These cases recognize that the Court does not legislate, but instead 

respects the legislature, by preserving a statute through a limiting 

interpretation. See United States v. Lanier, 520 U. S. 259, 267–268, 

n. 6 (1997) (This Court does not “create a common law crime” by adopting a “narrow[ing] constru[ction].” (internal quotation marks omitted)); 

supra this page, n. 42. Given that the Courts of Appeals uniformly 

recognized bribery and kickback schemes as honest-services fraud 

before McNally, 483 U. S. 350, and that these schemes composed the 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 45 

Opinion of the Court 

3 

The Government urges us to go further by locating

within §1346’s compass another category of proscribed 

conduct: “undisclosed self-dealing by a public official or 

private employee—i.e., the taking of official action by the

employee that furthers his own undisclosed financial

interests while purporting to act in the interests of those 

to whom he owes a fiduciary duty.” Id., at 43–44. “[T]he 

theory of liability in McNally itself was nondisclosure of a 

conflicting financial interest,” the Government observes,

and “Congress clearly intended to revive th[at] nondisclosure theory.” Id., at 44. Moreover, “[a]lthough not as 

numerous as the bribery and kickback cases,” the Government asserts, “the pre-McNally cases involving undisclosed self-dealing were abundant.” Ibid. 

Neither of these contentions withstands close inspection. McNally, as we have already observed, supra, at 36– 

37, 43, involved a classic kickback scheme: A public official, in exchange for routing Kentucky’s insurance business through a middleman company, arranged for that

company to share its commissions with entities in which

the official held an interest. 483 U. S., at 352–353, 360. 

This was no mere failure to disclose a conflict of interest; 

rather, the official conspired with a third party so that

both would profit from wealth generated by public contracts. See id., at 352–353. Reading §1346 to proscribe

bribes and kickbacks—and nothing more—satisfies Con­

—————— 

lion’s share of honest-services cases, limiting §1346 to these heartland

applications is surely “fairly possible.” Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312, 

331 (1988); cf. Clark v. Martinez, 543 U. S. 371, 380 (2005) (opinion of 

the Court by SCALIA, J.) (when adopting a limiting construction, “[t]he

lowest common denominator, as it were, must govern”). So construed, 

the statute is not unconstitutionally vague. See infra, at 47–48; post, at 

8. Only by taking a wrecking ball to a statute that can be salvaged

through a reasonable narrowing interpretation would we act out of step

with precedent. 
46 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

gress’ undoubted aim to reverse McNally on its facts. 

Nor are we persuaded that the pre-McNally conflict-ofinterest cases constitute core applications of the honestservices doctrine. Although the Courts of Appeals upheld 

honest-services convictions for “some schemes of nondisclosure and concealment of material information,” 

Mandel, 591 F. 2d, at 1361, they reached no consensus on 

which schemes qualified. In light of the relative infrequency of conflict-of-interest prosecutions in comparison to

bribery and kickback charges, and the intercircuit inconsistencies they produced, we conclude that a reasonable

limiting construction of §1346 must exclude this amorphous category of cases.

Further dispelling doubt on this point is the familiar 

principle that “ambiguity concerning the ambit of criminal 

statutes should be resolved in favor of lenity.” Cleveland, 

531 U. S., at 25 (quoting Rewis v. United States, 401 U. S. 

808, 812 (1971)). “This interpretive guide is especially

appropriate in construing [§1346] because . . . mail [and

wire] fraud [are] predicate offense[s] under [the Racketeer 

Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act], 18 U. S. C.

§1961(1) (1994 ed., Supp. IV), and the money laundering 

statute, §1956(c)(7)(A).” Cleveland, 531 U. S., at 25. 

Holding that honest-services fraud does not encompass 

conduct more wide-ranging than the paradigmatic cases of

bribes and kickbacks, we resist the Government’s less 

constrained construction absent Congress’ clear instruction otherwise. E.g., United States v. Universal C. I. T. 

Credit Corp., 344 U. S. 218, 221–222 (1952). 

In sum, our construction of §1346 “establish[es] a uniform national standard, define[s] honest services with

clarity, reach[es] only seriously culpable conduct, and

accomplish[es] Congress’s goal of ‘overruling’ McNally.” 

Brief for Albert W. Alschuler as Amicus Curiae in Weyhrauch v. United States, O. T. 2009, No. 08–1196, pp. 28– 

29. “If Congress desires to go further,” we reiterate, “it 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 47 

Opinion of the Court 

must speak more clearly than it has.” McNally, 483 U. S., 

at 360.44 

4 

Interpreted to encompass only bribery and kickback

schemes, §1346 is not unconstitutionally vague. Recall

that the void-for-vagueness doctrine addresses concerns 

about (1) fair notice and (2) arbitrary and discriminatory 

prosecutions. See Kolender, 461 U. S., at 357. A prohibition on fraudulently depriving another of one’s honest

services by accepting bribes or kickbacks does not present 

a problem on either score. 

As to fair notice, “whatever the school of thought concerning the scope and meaning of” §1346, it has always 

been “as plain as a pikestaff that” bribes and kickbacks

constitute honest-services fraud, Williams v. United 

States, 341 U. S. 97, 101 (1951), and the statute’s mens rea 

requirement further blunts any notice concern, see, e.g., 

Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 101–104 (1945) 

(plurality opinion). See also Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 

U. S. 601, 608 (1973) (“[E]ven if the outermost boundaries 

—————— 

44 If Congress were to take up the enterprise of criminalizing “undisclosed self-dealing by a public official or private employee,” Brief for 

United States 43, it would have to employ standards of sufficient 

definiteness and specificity to overcome due process concerns. The 

Government proposes a standard that prohibits the “taking of official

action by the employee that furthers his own undisclosed financial 

interests while purporting to act in the interests of those to whom he 

owes a fiduciary duty,” so long as the employee acts with a specific

intent to deceive and the undisclosed conduct could influence the victim 

to change its behavior. Id., at 43–44. See also id., at 40–41. That 

formulation, however, leaves many questions unanswered. How direct 

or significant does the conflicting financial interest have to be? To 

what extent does the official action have to further that interest in 

order to amount to fraud? To whom should the disclosure be made and 

what information should it convey? These questions and others call for 

particular care in attempting to formulate an adequate criminal prohibition in this context. 
48 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

of [a statute are] imprecise, any such uncertainty has little 

relevance . . . where appellants’ conduct falls squarely 

within the ‘hard core’ of the statute’s proscriptions.”).

Today’s decision clarifies that no other misconduct falls

within §1346’s province. See United States v. Lanier, 520 

U. S. 259, 266 (1997) (“[C]larity at the requisite level may 

be supplied by judicial gloss on an otherwise uncertain

statute.”).

As to arbitrary prosecutions, we perceive no significant 

risk that the honest-services statute, as we interpret it

today, will be stretched out of shape. Its prohibition on

bribes and kickbacks draws content not only from the preMcNally case law, but also from federal statutes proscribing—and defining—similar crimes. See, e.g., 18 U. S. C. 

§§201(b), 666(a)(2); 41 U. S. C. §52(2) (“The term ‘kickback’ means any money, fee, commission, credit, gift,

gratuity, thing of value, or compensation of any kind 

which is provided, directly or indirectly, to [enumerated

persons] for the purpose of improperly obtaining or rewarding favorable treatment in connection with [enumerated circumstances].”).45 See also, e.g., United States v. 

Ganim, 510 F. 3d 134, 147–149 (CA2 2007) (Sotomayor, J.) 

(reviewing honest-services conviction involving bribery in 

light of elements of bribery under other federal statutes); 

United States v. Whitfield, 590 F. 3d 325, 352–353 (CA5 

2009); United States v. Kemp, 500 F. 3d 257, 281–286 

(CA3 2007). A criminal defendant who participated in

a bribery or kickback scheme, in short, cannot tenably 

complain about prosecution under §1346 on vagueness

grounds. 

—————— 

45Overlap with other federal statutes does not render §1346 superfluous. The principal federal bribery statute, §201, for example, generally 

applies only to federal public officials, so §1346’s application to state

and local corruption and to private-sector fraud reaches misconduct

that might otherwise go unpunished. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 49 

Opinion of the Court 

C 

It remains to determine whether Skilling’s conduct

violated §1346. Skilling’s honest-services prosecution, the 

Government concedes, was not “prototypical.” Brief for 

United States 49. The Government charged Skilling with 

conspiring to defraud Enron’s shareholders by misrepresenting the company’s fiscal health, thereby artificially 

inflating its stock price. It was the Government’s theory

at trial that Skilling “profited from the fraudulent scheme 

. . . through the receipt of salary and bonuses, . . . and

through the sale of approximately $200 million in Enron 

stock, which netted him $89 million.” Id., at 51. 

The Government did not, at any time, allege that Skilling solicited or accepted side payments from a third party 

in exchange for making these misrepresentations. See 

Record 41328 (May 11, 2006 Letter from the Government 

to the District Court) (“[T]he indictment does not allege, 

and the government’s evidence did not show, that [Skilling] engaged in bribery.”). It is therefore clear that, as we 

read §1346, Skilling did not commit honest-services fraud. 

Because the indictment alleged three objects of the conspiracy—honest-services wire fraud, money-or-property

wire fraud, and securities fraud—Skilling’s conviction

is flawed. See Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298 

(1957) (constitutional error occurs when a jury is instructed on alternative theories of guilt and returns a 

general verdict that may rest on a legally invalid theory). 

This determination, however, does not necessarily require

reversal of the conspiracy conviction; we recently confirmed, in Hedgpeth v. Pulido, 555 U. S. ___ (2008) (per 

curiam), that errors of the Yates variety are subject to

harmless-error analysis. The parties vigorously dispute 

whether the error was harmless. Compare Brief for

United States 52 (“[A]ny juror who voted for conviction

based on [the honest-services theory] also would have

found [Skilling] guilty of conspiring to commit securities 
50 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

fraud.”) with Reply Brief 30 (The Government “cannot 

show that the conspiracy conviction rested only on the 

securities-fraud theory, rather than the distinct, legallyflawed honest-services theory.”). We leave this dispute for 

resolution on remand.46 

Whether potential reversal on the conspiracy count

touches any of Skilling’s other convictions is also an open 

question. All of his convictions, Skilling contends, hinged 

on the conspiracy count and, like dominoes, must fall if it 

falls. The District Court, deciding Skilling’s motion for 

bail pending appeal, found this argument dubious, App.

1141a–1142a, but the Fifth Circuit had no occasion to rule 

on it. That court may do so on remand. 

* * * 

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the Fifth Circuit’s

ruling on Skilling’s fair-trial argument, vacate its ruling 

on his conspiracy conviction, and remand the case for

proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

It is so ordered. 

—————— 

46The Fifth Circuit appeared to prejudge this issue, noting that, “if 

any of the three objects of Skilling’s conspiracy offers a legally insufficient theory,” it “must set aside his conviction.” 554 F. 3d, at 543. That 

reasoning relied on the mistaken premise that Hedgpeth v. Pulido, 555 

U. S. ___ (2008) (per curiam), governs only cases on collateral review. 

See 554 F. 3d, at 543, n. 10. Harmless-error analysis, we clarify, 

applies equally to cases on direct appeal. Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit,

on remand, should take a fresh look at the parties’ harmless-error 

arguments. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 1 

Opinion of SCALIA, J. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 08–1394 

JEFFREY K. SKILLING, PETITIONER v. UNITED 

STATES 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

[June 24, 2010] 

JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, and

with whom JUSTICE KENNEDY joins except as to Part III,

concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. 

I agree with the Court that petitioner Jeffrey Skilling’s

challenge to the impartiality of his jury and to the District

Court’s conduct of the voir dire fails. I therefore join Parts 

I and II of the Court’s opinion. I also agree that the decision upholding Skilling’s conviction for so-called “honestservices fraud” must be reversed, but for a different reason. In my view, the specification in 18 U. S. C. §1346 

(2006 ed., Supp. II) that “scheme or artifice to defraud” in

the mail-fraud and wire-fraud statutes, §§1341 and 1343

(2006 ed.), includes “a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services,” is vague, 

and therefore violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth 

Amendment. The Court strikes a pose of judicial humility 

in proclaiming that our task is “not to destroy the Act . . . 

but to construe it,” ante, at 42 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). But in transforming the prohibition of “honestservices fraud” into a prohibition of “bribery and kickbacks” it is wielding a power we long ago abjured: the

power to define new federal crimes. See United States v. 

Hudson, 7 Cranch 32, 34 (1812). 
2 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SCALIA, J. 

I 

A criminal statute must clearly define the conduct it 

proscribes, see Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 

108 (1972). A statute that is unconstitutionally vague

cannot be saved by a more precise indictment, see Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451, 453 (1939), nor by 

judicial construction that writes in specific criteria that its

text does not contain, see United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 

214, 219–221 (1876). Our cases have described vague 

statutes as failing “to provide a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what is prohibited, or [as being] so

standardless that [they] authoriz[e] or encourag[e] seriously discriminatory enforcement.” United States v. Williams, 553 U. S. 285, 304 (2008). Here, Skilling argues

that §1346 fails to provide fair notice and encourages 

arbitrary enforcement because it provides no definition of 

the right of honest services whose deprivation it prohibits.

Brief for Petitioner 38–39, 42–44. In my view Skilling is 

correct. 

The Court maintains that “the intangible right of honest 

services ” means the right not to have one’s fiduciaries 

accept “bribes or kickbacks.” Its first step in reaching

that conclusion is the assertion that the phrase refers to

“the doctrine developed” in cases decided by lower federal

courts prior to our decision in McNally v. United States, 

483 U. S. 350 (1987). Ante, at 39. I do not contest that. I 

agree that Congress used the novel phrase to adopt the 

lower-court case law that had been disapproved by 

McNally—what the Court calls “the pre-McNally honestservices doctrine,” ante, at 42. The problem is that that 

doctrine provides no “ascertainable standard of guilt,” 

United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81, 89 

(1921), and certainly is not limited to “bribes or kickbacks.” 

Investigation into the meaning of “the pre-McNally

honest-services doctrine” might logically begin with 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 3 

Opinion of SCALIA, J. 

McNally itself, which rejected it. That case repudiated the

many Court of Appeals holdings that had expanded the 

meaning of “fraud” in the mail-fraud and wire-fraud statutes beyond deceptive schemes to obtain property. 483 

U. S., at 360. If the repudiated cases stood for a prohibition of “bribery and kickbacks,” one would have expected 

those words to appear in the opinion’s description of the 

cases. In fact, they do not. Not at all. Nor did McNally

even provide a consistent definition of the pre-existing 

theory of fraud it rejected. It referred variously to a right

of citizens “to have the [State]’s affairs conducted honestly,” id., at 353, to “honest and impartial government,” 

id., at 355, to “good government,” id., at 356, and “to have 

public officials perform their duties honestly,” id., at 358. 

It described prior case law as holding that “a public official

owes a fiduciary duty to the public, and misuse of his office

for private gain is a fraud,” id., at 355. 

But the pre-McNally Court of Appeals opinions were not

limited to fraud by public officials. Some courts had held 

that those fiduciaries subject to the “honest services”

obligation included private individuals who merely participated in public decisions, see, e.g., United States v. 

Gray, 790 F. 2d 1290, 1295–1296 (CA6 1986) (citing 

United States v. Margiotta, 688 F. 2d 108, 122 (CA2 

1982)), and even private employees who had no role in

public decisions, see, e.g., United States v. Lemire, 720 

F. 2d 1327, 1335–1336 (CADC 1983); United States v. Von 

Barta, 635 F. 2d 999, 1007 (CA2 1980). Moreover, “to say

that a man is a fiduciary only begins [the] analysis; it 

gives direction to further inquiry. . . . What obligations 

does he owe as a fiduciary?” SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 

U. S. 80, 85–86 (1943). None of the “honest services” 

cases, neither those pertaining to public officials nor those 

pertaining to private employees, defined the nature and 

content of the fiduciary duty central to the “fraud” offense. 

There was not even universal agreement concerning the 
4 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SCALIA, J. 

source of the fiduciary obligation—whether it must be

positive state or federal law, see, e.g., United States v. 

Rabbitt, 583 F. 2d 1014, 1026 (CA8 1978), or merely general principles, such as the “obligations of loyalty and

fidelity” that inhere in the “employment relationship,” 

Lemire, supra, at 1336. The decision McNally reversed 

had grounded the duty in general (not jurisdiction-specific) 

trust law, see Gray, supra, at 1294, a corpus juris festooned with various duties. See, e.g., Restatement (Second) of Trusts §§169–185 (1976). Another pre-McNally

case referred to the general law of agency, United States v. 

Ballard, 663 F. 2d 534, 543, n. 22 (CA5 1981), modified on

other grounds by 680 F. 2d 352 (1982), which imposes

duties quite different from those of a trustee.1 See Restatement (Second) of Agency §§377–398 (1957). 

This indeterminacy does not disappear if one assumes 

that the pre-McNally cases developed a federal, commonlaw fiduciary duty; the duty remained hopelessly undefined. Some courts described it in astoundingly broad 

language. Blachly v. United States, 380 F. 2d 665 (CA5

1967), loftily declared that “[l]aw puts its imprimatur on

the accepted moral standards and condemns conduct 

which fails to match the ‘reflection of moral uprightness,

of fundamental honesty, fair play and right dealing in the 

general and business life of members of society.’” Id., at 

671 (quoting Gregory v. United States, 253 F. 2d 104, 109 

(CA5 1958)). Other courts unhelpfully added that any 

scheme “contrary to public policy” was also condemned by 

—————— 

1The Court is untroubled by these divisions because “these debates 

were rare in bribe and kickback cases,” in which “[t]he existence of a

fiduciary relationship, under any definition of that term, was usually 

beyond dispute,” ante, at 43, n. 41. This misses the point. The Courts 

of Appeals may have consistently found unlawful the acceptance of a 

bribe or kickback by one or another sort of fiduciary, but they have not 

consistently described (as the statute does not) any test for who is a 

fiduciary. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 5 

Opinion of SCALIA, J. 

the statute, United States v. Bohonus, 628 F. 2d 1167, 

1171 (CA9 1980). See also United States v. Mandel, 591 

F. 2d 1347, 1361 (CA4 1979) (any scheme that is “contrary 

to public policy and conflicts with accepted standards of 

moral uprightness, fundamental honesty, fair play and 

right dealing”). Even opinions that did not indulge in such

grandiloquence did not specify the duty at issue beyond

loyalty or honesty, see, e.g., Von Barta, supra, at 1005– 

1006. Moreover, the demands of the duty were said to be

greater for public officials than for private employees, see, 

e.g., Lemire, supra, at 1337, n. 13; Ballard, supra, at 541, 

n. 17, but in what respects (or by how much) was never 

made clear. 

The indefiniteness of the fiduciary duty is not all. Many

courts held that some je-ne-sais-quoi beyond a mere

breach of fiduciary duty was needed to establish honestservices fraud. See, e.g., Von Barta, supra, at 1006 (collecting cases); United States v. George, 477 F. 2d 508, 512 

(CA7 1973). There was, unsurprisingly, some dispute

about that, at least in the context of acts by persons owing 

duties to the public. See United States v. Price, 788 F. 2d 

234, 237 (CA4 1986). And even among those courts that

did require something additional where a public official 

was involved, there was disagreement as to what the 

addition should be. For example, in United States v. Bush, 

522 F. 2d 641 (1975), the Seventh Circuit held that material misrepresentations and active concealment were 

enough, id., at 647–648. But in Rabbitt, 583 F. 2d 1014, 

the Eighth Circuit held that actual harm to the State was

needed, id., at 1026. 

Similar disagreements occurred with respect to private

employees. Courts disputed whether the defendant must

use his fiduciary position for his own gain. Compare 

Lemire, supra, at 1335 (yes), with United States v. Bronston, 658 F. 2d 920, 926 (CA2 1981) (no). One opinion

upheld a mail-fraud conviction on the ground that the 
6 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SCALIA, J. 

defendant’s “failure to disclose his receipt of kickbacks and

consulting fees from [his employer’s] suppliers resulted in

a breach of his fiduciary duties depriving his employer of 

his loyal and honest services.” United States v. Bryza, 522 

F. 2d 414, 422 (CA7 1975). Another opinion, however, 

demanded more than an intentional failure to disclose: 

“There must be a failure to disclose something which in

the knowledge or contemplation of the employee poses an

independent business risk to the employer.” Lemire, 720 

F. 2d, at 1337. Other courts required that the victim

suffer some loss, see, e.g., Ballard, supra, at 541–542—a 

proposition that, of course, other courts rejected, see, e.g., 

United States v. Newman, 664 F. 2d 12, 20 (CA2 1981); 

United States v. O’Malley, 535 F. 2d 589, 592 (CA10 1976). 

The Court’s statement today that there was a deprivation

of honest services even if “the scheme occasioned a money 

or property gain for the betrayed party,” ante, at 35, is 

therefore true, except to the extent it is not.

In short, the first step in the Court’s analysis—holding 

that “the intangible right of honest services” refers to “the 

honest-services doctrine recognized in Court of Appeals’ 

decisions before McNally,” ante, at 39—is a step out of the 

frying pan into the fire. The pre-McNally cases provide no 

clear indication of what constitutes a denial of the right of

honest services. The possibilities range from any action 

that is contrary to public policy or otherwise immoral, to 

only the disloyalty of a public official or employee to his 

principal, to only the secret use of a perpetrator’s position 

of trust in order to harm whomever he is beholden to. The 

duty probably did not have to be rooted in state law, but 

maybe it did. It might have been more demanding in the

case of public officials, but perhaps not. At the time §1346

was enacted there was no settled criterion for choosing 

among these options, for conclusively settling what was in 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 7 

Opinion of SCALIA, J. 

and what was out.2 

II 

The Court is aware of all this. It knows that adopting 

by reference “the pre-McNally honest-services doctrine,” 

ante, at 42, is adopting by reference nothing more precise 

than the referring term itself (“the intangible right of

honest services”). Hence the deus ex machina: “[W]e pare

that body of precedent down to its core,” ante, at 39. Since 

the honest-services doctrine “had its genesis” in bribery

prosecutions, and since several cases and counsel for

Skilling referred to bribery and kickback schemes as “core” 

or “paradigm” or “typical” examples, or “[t]he most obvious 

form,” of honest-services fraud, ante, at 43 (internal quotation marks omitted), and since two cases and counsel for 

the Government say that they formed the “vast majority,”

or “most” or at least “[t]he bulk” of honest-services cases, 

ante, at 42–44 (internal quotation marks omitted),

THEREFORE it must be the case that they are all 

Congress meant by its reference to the honest-services 

doctrine. 

Even if that conclusion followed from its premises, it 

would not suffice to eliminate the vagueness of the statute. It would solve (perhaps) the indeterminacy of what 

acts constitute a breach of the “honest services” obligation 

under the pre-McNally law. But it would not solve the 

most fundamental indeterminacy: the character of the

“fiduciary capacity” to which the bribery and kickback 

—————— 

2Courts since §1346’s enactment have fared no better, reproducing

some of the same disputes that predated McNally. See, e.g., Sorich v. 

United States, 555 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2009) (SCALIA, J., dissenting from 

denial of certiorari) (slip op., at 3–4) (collecting cases). We have previously found important to our vagueness analysis “the conflicting results

which have arisen from the painstaking attempts of enlightened judges

in seeking to carry out [a] statute in cases brought before them.” 

United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81, 89 (1921). I am at 

a loss to explain why the Court barely mentions those conflicts today. 
8 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SCALIA, J. 

restriction applies. Does it apply only to public officials?

Or in addition to private individuals who contract with the

public? Or to everyone, including the corporate officer 

here? The pre-McNally case law does not provide an 

answer. Thus, even with the bribery and kickback limitation the statute does not answer the question “What is the

criterion of guilt?”

But that is perhaps beside the point, because it is obvious that mere prohibition of bribery and kickbacks was

not the intent of the statute. To say that bribery and

kickbacks represented “the core” of the doctrine, or that

most cases applying the doctrine involved those offenses, 

is not to say that they are the doctrine. All it proves is

that the multifarious versions of the doctrine overlap with 

regard to those offenses. But the doctrine itself is much 

more. Among all the pre-McNally smörgåsbord-offerings

of varieties of honest-services fraud, not one is limited to 

bribery and kickbacks. That is a dish the Court has 

cooked up all on its own. 

Thus, the Court’s claim to “respec[t] the legislature,” 

ante, at 44, n. 43 (emphasis deleted), is false. It is entirely

clear (as the Court and I agree) that Congress meant to 

reinstate the body of pre-McNally honest-services law; and 

entirely clear that that prohibited much more (though 

precisely what more is uncertain) than bribery and kickbacks. Perhaps it is true that “Congress intended §1346 to 

reach at least bribes and kickbacks,” ante, at 44. That 

simply does not mean, as the Court now holds, that “§1346

criminalizes only” bribery and kickbacks, ibid. 

Arriving at that conclusion requires not interpretation

but invention. The Court replaces a vague criminal standard that Congress adopted with a more narrow one (included within the vague one) that can pass constitutional 

muster. I know of no precedent for such “paring down,”3 

—————— 

3 The only alleged precedent the Court dares to describe is Civil Ser-
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 9 

Opinion of SCALIA, J. 

and it seems to me clearly beyond judicial power. This is 

not, as the Court claims, ante, at 41, simply a matter of 

adopting a “limiting construction” in the face of potential 

unconstitutionality. To do that, our cases have been careful to note, the narrowing construction must be “fairly 

possible,” Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312, 331 (1988), “reasonable,” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657 (1895),

or not “plainly contrary to the intent of Congress,” Edward 

J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & 

Constr. Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575 (1988). As we 

have seen (and the Court does not contest), no court before 

McNally concluded that the “deprivation of honest services” meant only the acceptance of bribes or kickbacks. If 

it were a “fairly possible” or “reasonable” construction, not 

“contrary to the intent of Congress,” one would think that 

some court would have adopted it. The Court does not 

even point to a post-McNally case that reads §1346 to

cover only bribery and kickbacks, and I am aware of none. 

The canon of constitutional avoidance, on which the 

Court so heavily relies, see ante, at 41–42, states that 

“when the constitutionality of a statute is assailed, if the 

—————— 

vice Comm’n v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548 (1973). That case involved a provision of the Hatch Act incorporating prior adjudications of 

the Civil Service Commission. We upheld the provision against a 

vagueness challenge—not, however, by “paring down” the adjudications

to a more narrow rule that we invented, but by concluding that what 

they held was not vague. See id., at 571–574. The string of cases the 

Court lists, see ante, at 41, n. 40, (almost none of which addressed

claims of vagueness), have nothing to do with “paring down.” The one 

that comes closest, United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U. S. 

363 (1971), specified a time limit within which proceedings authorized 

by statute for the forfeiture of obscene imported materials had to be

commenced and completed. That is not much different from “reading

in” a reasonable-time requirement for obligations undertaken in contracts, and can hardly be described as a rewriting or “paring down” of 

the statute. The Court relied on legislative history anticipating that 

the proceedings would be prompt, id., at 370–371, and noted that 

(unlike here) it was not “decid[ing] issues of policy,” id., at 372. 
10 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SCALIA, J. 

statute be reasonably susceptible of two interpretations,

by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the 

other valid, it is our plain duty to adopt that construction

which will save the statute from constitutional infirmity.” 

United States ex rel. Attorney General v. Delaware & 

Hudson Co., 213 U. S. 366, 407 (1909); see also United 

States v. Rumely, 345 U. S. 41, 45 (1953) (describing the 

canon as decisive “in the choice of fair alternatives”). Here 

there is no choice to be made between two “fair alternatives.” Until today, no one has thought (and there is no 

basis for thinking) that the honest-services statute prohibited only bribery and kickbacks. 

I certainly agree with the Court that we must, “if we

can,” uphold, rather than “condemn,” Congress’s enactments, ante, at 38. But I do not believe we have the 

power, in order to uphold an enactment, to rewrite it. 

Congress enacted the entirety of the pre-McNally honestservices law, the content of which is (to put it mildly) 

unclear. In prior vagueness cases, we have resisted the 

temptation to make all things right with the stroke of our 

pen. See, e.g., Smith v. Goguen, 415 U. S. 566, 575 (1974).

I would show the same restraint today, and reverse Skilling’s conviction on the basis that §1346 provides no “ascertainable standard” for the conduct it condemns, L. Cohen, 

255 U. S., at 89. Instead, the Court today adds to our 

functions the prescription of criminal law. 

III 

A brief word about the appropriate remedy. As I noted 

supra, at 2, Skilling has argued that §1346 cannot be

constitutionally applied to him because it affords no definition of the right whose deprivation it prohibits. Though

this reasoning is categorical, it does not make Skilling’s

challenge a “facial” one, in the sense that it seeks invalidation of the statute in all its applications, as opposed to

preventing its enforcement against him. I continue to 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 11 

Opinion of SCALIA, J. 

doubt whether “striking down” a statute is ever an appropriate exercise of our Article III power. See Chicago v. 

Morales, 527 U. S. 41, 77 (1999) (SCALIA, J., dissenting).

In the present case, the universality of the infirmity Skilling identifies in §1346 may mean that if he wins, anyone

else prosecuted under the statute will win as well, see 

Smith, supra, at 576–578. But Skilling only asks that his 

conviction be reversed, Brief for Petitioner 57–58, so the 

remedy he seeks is not facial invalidation. 

I would therefore reverse Skilling’s conviction under

§1346 on the ground that it fails to define the conduct it 

prohibits. The fate of the statute in future prosecutions—

obvious from my reasoning in the case—would be a matter 

for stare decisis. 

* * * 

It is hard to imagine a case that more clearly fits the

description of what Chief Justice Waite said could not be

done, in a colorful passage oft-cited in our vagueness 

opinions, United States v. Reese, 92 U. S., at 221: 

“The question, then, to be determined, is, whether 

we can introduce words of limitation into a penal 

statute so as to make it specific, when, as expressed, it 

is general only.

“It would certainly be dangerous if the legislature

could set a net large enough to catch all possible offenders, and leave it to the courts to step inside and

say who could be rightfully detained, and who should

be set at large. This would, to some extent, substitute 

the judicial for the legislative department of the government. . . . 

“To limit this statute in the manner now asked 

for would be to make a new law, not to enforce an old 

one. This is no part of our duty.” 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 1 

Opinion of ALITO, J. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 08–1394 

JEFFREY K. SKILLING, PETITIONER v. UNITED 

STATES 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

[June 24, 2010] 

JUSTICE ALITO, concurring in part and concurring in the

judgment. 

I join the judgment of the Court and all but Part II of 

the Court’s opinion. I write separately to address petitioner’s jury-trial argument. 

The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants

a trial before “an impartial jury.” In my view, this requirement is satisfied so long as no biased juror is actually

seated at trial. Of course, evidence of pretrial media 

attention and widespread community hostility may play a 

role in the bias inquiry. Such evidence may be important 

in assessing the adequacy of voir dire, see, e.g., Mu’Min v. 

Virginia, 500 U. S. 415, 428–432 (1991), or in reviewing 

the denial of requests to dismiss particular jurors for 

cause, see, e.g., Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025, 1036– 

1040 (1984). There are occasions in which such evidence 

weighs heavily in favor of a change of venue. In the end, 

however, if no biased jury is actually seated, there is no 

violation of the defendant’s right to an impartial jury. See 

id., at 1031–1035, 1041; Murphy v. Florida, 421 U. S. 794, 

800–801, 803 (1975); see also Rivera v. Illinois, 556 U. S. 

___, ___–___ (2009) (slip op., at 7–8); United States v. 

Martinez-Salazar, 528 U. S. 304, 311, 316–317 (2000); 

Smith v. Phillips, 455 U. S. 209, 215–218 (1982). 

Petitioner advances a very different understanding of 
2 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of ALITO, J. 

the jury-trial right. Where there is extraordinary pretrial 

publicity and community hostility, he contends, a court

must presume juror prejudice and thus grant a change of 

venue. Brief for Petitioner 25–34. I disagree. Careful voir 

dire can often ensure the selection of impartial jurors even 

where pretrial media coverage has generated much hostile 

community sentiment. Moreover, once a jury has been

selected, there are measures that a trial judge may take to

insulate jurors from media coverage during the course of 

the trial. What the Sixth Amendment requires is “an

impartial jury.” If the jury that sits and returns a verdict

is impartial, a defendant has received what the Sixth 

Amendment requires.

The rule that petitioner advances departs from the text 

of the Sixth Amendment and is difficult to apply. It requires a trial judge to determine whether the adverse 

pretrial media coverage and community hostility in a 

particular case has reached a certain level of severity, but

there is no clear way of demarcating that level or of determining whether it has been met. 

Petitioner relies chiefly on three cases from the 1960’s— 

Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U. S. 333 (1966), Estes v. Texas, 

381 U. S. 532 (1965), and Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 

723 (1963). I do not read those cases as demanding petitioner’s suggested approach. As the Court notes, 

Sheppard and Estes primarily “involved media interference with courtroom proceedings during trial.” Ante, at 

16, n. 14; see also post, at 20 (SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring 

in part and dissenting in part). Rideau involved unique 

events in a small community. 

I share some of JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR’s concerns about 

the adequacy of the voir dire in this case and the trial 

judge’s findings that certain jurors could be impartial. See 

post, at 34–37. But those highly fact-specific issues are

not within the question presented. Pet. for Cert. i. I also 

do not understand the opinion of the Court as reaching 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 3 

Opinion of ALITO, J. 

any question regarding a change of venue under Federal

Rule of Criminal Procedure 21. 

Because petitioner, in my view, is not entitled to a reversal of the decision below on the jury-trial question that

is before us, I join the judgment of the Court in full. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 1 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 08–1394 

JEFFREY K. SKILLING, PETITIONER v. UNITED 

STATES 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

[June 24, 2010] 

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS and 

JUSTICE BREYER join, concurring in part and dissenting in 

part. 

I concur in the Court’s resolution of the honest-services 

fraud question and join Part III of its opinion. I respectfully dissent, however, from the Court’s conclusion that

Jeffrey Skilling received a fair trial before an impartial 

jury. Under our relevant precedents, the more intense the 

public’s antipathy toward a defendant, the more careful a

court must be to prevent that sentiment from tainting the

jury. In this case, passions ran extremely high. The 

sudden collapse of Enron directly affected thousands of 

people in the Houston area and shocked the entire community. The accompanying barrage of local media coverage was massive in volume and often caustic in tone. As 

Enron’s one-time CEO, Skilling was at the center of the 

storm. Even if these extraordinary circumstances did not

constitutionally compel a change of venue, they required 

the District Court to conduct a thorough voir dire in which 

prospective jurors’ attitudes about the case were closely

scrutinized. The District Court’s inquiry lacked the necessary thoroughness and left serious doubts about whether 

the jury empaneled to decide Skilling’s case was capable of 

rendering an impartial decision based solely on the evidence presented in the courtroom. Accordingly, I would 
2 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

grant Skilling relief on his fair-trial claim. 

I 

The majority understates the breadth and depth of

community hostility toward Skilling and overlooks significant deficiencies in the District Court’s jury selection 

process. The failure of Enron wounded Houston deeply. 

Virtually overnight, what had been the city’s “largest, 

most visible, and most prosperous company,” its “foremost 

social and charitable force,” and “a source of civic pride”

was reduced to a “shattered shell.” App. ¶¶11, 13, pp. 

649a–650a, 1152a. Thousands of the company’s employees lost their jobs and saw their retirement savings vanish. As the effects rippled through the local economy, 

thousands of additional jobs disappeared, businesses 

shuttered, and community groups that once benefited from

Enron’s largesse felt the loss of millions of dollars in contributions. See, e.g., 3 Supp. Record 1229, 1267; see also

554 F. 3d 529, 560 (CA5 2009) (“Accounting firms that 

serviced Enron’s books had less work, hotels had more 

open rooms, restaurants sold fewer meals, and so on”). 

Enron’s community ties were so extensive that the entire

local U. S. Attorney’s Office was forced to recuse itself 

from the Government’s investigation into the company’s

fall. See 3 Supp. Record 608 (official press release). 

With Enron’s demise affecting the lives of so many

Houstonians, local media coverage of the story saturated

the community. According to a defense media expert, the 

Houston Chronicle—the area’s leading newspaper—

assigned as many as 12 reporters to work on the Enron 

story full time. App. 568a–569a. The paper mentioned 

Enron in more than 4,000 articles during the 3-year period

following the company’s December 2001 bankruptcy filing.

Hundreds of these articles discussed Skilling by name. 

See 3 Supp. Record 2114. Skilling’s expert, a professional

journalist and academic with 30 years’ experience, could 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 3 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

not “recall another instance where a local paper dedicated 

as many resources to a single topic over such an extended

period of time as the Houston Chronicle . . . dedicated to 

Enron.” App. ¶32, p. 570a. Local television news coverage 

was similarly pervasive and, in terms of “editorial theme,”

“largely followed the Chronicle’s lead.” Id., ¶11, at 559a; 

see also id., at 717a. Between May 2002 and October 

2004, local stations aired an estimated 19,000 news segments involving Enron, more than 1600 of which mentioned Skilling. 3 Supp. Record 2116.

While many of the stories were straightforward news

items, many others conveyed and amplified the community’s outrage at the top executives perceived to be responsible for the company’s bankruptcy. A Chronicle report on

Skilling’s 2002 testimony before Congress is typical of the 

coverage. It began, “Across Houston, Enron employees

watched former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling’s congressional testimony on television, turning incredulous, angry

and then sarcastic by turns, as a man they knew as savvy 

and detail-oriented pleaded memory failure and ignorance

about critical financial transactions at the now-collapsed 

energy giant.” App. 1218a. “‘He is lying; he knew everything,’ said [an employee], who said she had seen Skilling 

frequently over her 18 years with the firm, where Skilling 

was known for his intimate grasp of the inner doings at

the company. ‘I am getting sicker by the minute.’” Id., at 

1219a. A companion piece quoted a local attorney who 

called Skilling an “idiot” who was “in denial”; he added,

“I’m glad [Skilling’s] not my client.” Id., at 592a–593a. 

Articles deriding Enron’s senior executives were juxtaposed with pieces expressing sympathy toward and solidarity with the company’s many victims. Skilling’s media 

expert counted nearly a hundred victim-related stories in

the Chronicle, including a “multi-page layout entitled ‘The 

Faces of Enron,’” which poignantly described the gutwrenching experiences of former employees who lost vast 
4 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

sums of money, faced eviction from their homes, could not

afford Christmas gifts for their children, and felt “scared,”

“hurt,” “humiliat[ed],” “helpless,” and “betrayed.” Id., ¶71,

at 585a–586a. The conventional wisdom that blame for 

Enron’s devastating implosion and the ensuing human 

tragedy ultimately rested with Skilling and former Enron 

Chairman Kenneth Lay became so deeply ingrained in the 

popular imagination that references to their involvement

even turned up on the sports pages: “If you believe the

story about [Coach Bill Parcells] not having anything to do

with the end of Emmitt Smith’s Cowboys career, then you

probably believe in other far-fetched concepts. Like Jeff 

Skilling having nothing to do with Enron’s collapse.” 3 

Supp. Record 811.

When a federal grand jury indicted Skilling, Lay, and 

Richard Causey—Enron’s former chief accounting officer—

in 2004 on charges of conspiracy to defraud, securities 

fraud, and other crimes, the media placed them directly in

its crosshairs. In the words of one article, “there was one 

thing those whose lives were touched by the once-exalted 

company all seemed to agree upon: The indictment of 

former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling was overdue.” App.

1393a. Scoffing at Skilling’s attempts to paint himself as 

“a ‘victim’ of his subordinates,” id., at 1394a, the Chronicle 

derided “the doofus defense” that Lay and Skilling were

expected to offer, id., at 1401a.1 The Chronicle referred to 

—————— 

1See also App. 735a (describing Enron as “hardball fraud” and noting

that “Enron prosecutors have approached the case more like an organized crime investigation than a corporate fraud prosecution,” a “tactic

[that] makes sense” given “the sheer pervasiveness of fraud, corruption,

and self-dealing”); id., at 1403a (“Lay stood proudly in front of Enron’s 

facade of success, while Skilling and his own prot[égé], [Andrew] 

Fastow, ginned up increasingly convoluted mechanisms for concealing

the financial reality. . . . A court will decide the particulars, but yes, 

Ken Lay knew”); id., 1406a, 1409a (describing Enron’s collapse as 

“failure as a result of fraud” and criticizing Skilling for using “vitriol 

[as] a smokescreen” and “bolting for the door” just before Enron’s stock 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 5 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

the coming Skilling/Lay trial as “the main event” and “The 

Big One,” which would finally bring “the true measure of 

justice in the Enron saga.” Record 40002; App. 1457a, 

1460a.2 On the day the superseding indictment charging

Lay was issued, “the Chronicle dedicated three-quarters of

its front page, 2 other full pages, and substantial portions 

of 4 other pages, all in the front or business sections, to 

th[e] story.” Id., ¶57, at 580a–581a. 

Citing the widely felt sense of victimhood among Houstonians and the voluminous adverse publicity, Skilling 

moved in November 2004 for a change of venue.3 The 

District Court denied the motion, characterizing the media

coverage as largely “objective and unemotional.” App. to

Brief for United States 11a. Voir dire, it concluded, would 

provide an effective means to “ferret out any bias” in the 

jury pool. Id., at 18a; see ante, at 4. 

To that end, the District Court began the jury selection 

process by mailing screening questionnaires to 400 prospective jurors in November 2005. The completed questionnaires of the 283 respondents not excused for hardship

dramatically illustrated the widespread impact of Enron’s 

—————— 

price plummeted); 3 Supp. Record 1711 (discussing the role of Skilling

and Lay in “the granddaddy of all corporate frauds”). 2According to Skilling’s media expert, local television stations 

“adopted these same themes” and “dr[o]ve them home through such 

vivid and repeated visual imagery as replaying footage of Skilling’s . . . 

‘perp walk’ when details about Skilling’s upcoming trial [we]re discussed.” App. ¶65, p. 584a. During arraignment, news outlets “followed each man as he drove from his home to FBI headquarters, to the 

court, and back home, often providing ‘color’ commentary—such as

interviewing former Enron employees for comment on the day’s events.” 

Id., ¶60, at 581a. 

3Reporting on the change-of-venue motion, the Chronicle described 

Skilling as a “desperate defendant,” and the Austin AmericanStatesman opined that while a change of venue may make sense “[f]rom 

a legal perspective,” “from the standpoint of pure justice, the wealthy 

executives really should be judged right where their economic hurricane struck with the most force.” Id., at 748a, 747a. 
6 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

collapse on the Houston community and confirmed the 

intense animosity of Houstonians toward Skilling and his 

codefendants. More than one-third of the prospective 

jurors (approximately 99 of 283, by my count) indicated 

that they or persons they knew had lost money or jobs as a

result of the Enron bankruptcy. Two-thirds of the jurors 

(about 188 of 283) expressed views about Enron or the

defendants that suggested a potential predisposition to

convict. In many instances, they did not mince words,

describing Skilling as “smug,” “arrogant,” “brash,” “conceited,” “greedy,” “deceitful,” “totally unethical and criminal,” “a crook,” “the biggest liar on the face of the earth,”

and “guilty as sin” (capitalization omitted).4 Only about 5

percent of the prospective jurors (15 of 283) did not read 

the Houston Chronicle, had not otherwise “heard or read 

about any of the Enron cases,” Record 13019, were not 

connected to Enron victims, and gave no answers suggest­

—————— 

4See, e.g., Juror 1 (“Ken Lay and the others are guilty as all get out

and ought to go to jail”; Skilling is “[b]rash, [a]rrogant [and] 

[c]onceited”; “I find it morally awful that these people are still running 

loose”); Juror 70 (“Mr. Skilling is the biggest liar on the face of the 

earth”); Juror 163 (Skilling “would lie to his mother if it would further 

his cause”); Juror 185 (“I think [Skilling] was arrogant and a crook”);

Juror 200 (Skilling is a “[s]killful [l]iar [and] crook” who did “a lot of the 

dirty work”; the defendants would “have to be blind, deaf, [and] stupid

to be unaware of what was happening!” (emphasis deleted)); Juror 206

(Skilling is “[t]otally unethical and criminal”; the defendants “are all 

guilty and should be reduced to having to beg on the corner [and] live 

under a bridge”); Juror 238 (“They are all guilty as sin—come on now”); 

Juror 299 (Skilling “initiated, designed, [and] authorized certain illegal

actions”); Juror 314 (Lay “should ‘fess up’ and take his punishment like 

a man”; “[t]he same goes for Jeffrey Skilling. . . . He and his family . . .

should be stripped of all of their assets [and] made to start over just

like the thousands he made start all over”); Juror 377 (Skilling is 

“[s]mug,” “[g]reedy,” and “[d]isingenu[ous]”; he “had an active hand in

creating and sustaining a fraud”). Defendants’ Renewed Motion for 

Change of Venue, Record, Doc. 618 (Sealed Exhs.) (hereinafter Skilling’s Renewed Venue Motion); see also App. 794a–797a (summarizing

additional responses). 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 7 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

ing possible antipathy toward the defendants.5 The parties jointly stipulated to the dismissal of 119 members of

the jury pool for cause, hardship, or disability, but numerous individuals who had made harsh comments about 

Skilling remained.6 

On December 28, 2005, shortly after the questionnaires

had been returned, Causey pleaded guilty. The plea was

covered in lead newspaper and television stories. A frontpage headline in the Chronicle proclaimed that “Causey’s 

—————— 

5Another 20 percent (about 59 of 283) indicated that they read the

Chronicle or had otherwise heard about the Enron cases but did not 

report that they were victims or make comments suggesting possible

bias against the defendants. 6See, e.g., Juror 29 (Skilling is “[n]ot an honest man”); Juror 104 

(Skilling “knows more than he’s admitting”); Juror 211 (“I believe he 

was involved in wrong doings”); Juror 219 (“So many people lost their

life savings because of the dishonesty of some members of the executive

team”; Skilling was “[t]oo aggressive w[ith] accounting”); Juror 234 

(“With his level of control and power, hard to believe that he was 

unaware and not responsible in some way”); Juror 240 (Skilling 

“[s]eems to be very much involved in criminal goings on”); Juror 255 

(“[T]housands of people were taken advantage of by executives at 

Enron”; Skilling is “arrogant”; “Skilling was Andrew Fastow’s immediate superior. Fastow has plead[ed] guilty to felony charges. I believe 

Skilling was aware of Fastow’s illegal behavior”); Juror 263 (“Nice try 

resigning 6 months before the collaps[e], but again, he had to know 

what was going on”); Juror 272 (Skilling “[k]new he was getting out

before the [d]am [b]roke”); Juror 292 (Skilling “[b]ailed out when he 

knew Enron was going down”); Juror 315 (“[H]ow could they not know

and they seem to be lying about some things”); Juror 328 (“They should

be held responsible as officers of this company for what happened”);

Juror 350 (“I believe he greatly misused his power and affected hundreds of lives as a result”; “I believe they are all guilty. Their ‘doings’

affected not only those employed by Enron but many others as well”);

Juror 360 (“I seem to remember him trying to claim to have mental or

emotional issues that would remove him from any guilt. I think that is 

deceitful. It seems as though he is a big player in the downfall”); Juror 

378 (“I believe he knew, and certainly should have known as the CEO, 

that illegal and improper [activities] were rampant in Enron”; “I believe 

all of them were instrumental, and were co-conspirators, in the massive

fraud perpetrated at Enron”). Skilling’s Renewed Venue Motion. 
8 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

plea wreaks havoc for Lay, Skilling.” Record 12049, n. 13; 

see also ibid. (quoting a former U. S. attorney who described the plea as “a serious blow to the defense”). A 

Chronicle editorial opined that “Causey’s admission of 

securities fraud . . . . makes less plausible Lay’s claim that

most of the guilty pleas were the result of prosecutorial 

pressure rather than actual wrongdoing.” Id., at 12391. 

With the trial date quickly approaching, Skilling renewed his change-of-venue motion, arguing that both the 

questionnaire responses and the Causey guilty plea confirmed that he could not receive a fair trial in Houston. In 

the alternative, Skilling asserted that “defendants are

entitled to a more thorough jury selection process than

currently envisioned by the [c]ourt.” Id., at 12067. The 

court had announced its intention to question individual

jurors at the bench with one attorney for each side present, and to complete the voir dire in a single day. See, 

e.g., id., at 11804–11805, 11808. Skilling proposed, inter 

alia, that defense counsel be afforded a greater role in 

questioning, id., at 12074; that jurors be questioned privately in camera or in a closed courtroom where it would 

be easier for counsel to consult with their colleagues, 

clients, and jury consultants, id., at 12070–12072; and 

that the court “avoid leading questions,” which “tend to

[e]licit affirmative responses from prospective jurors that

may not reflect their actual views,” id., at 12072. At a 

minimum, Skilling asserted, the court should grant a 

continuance of at least 30 days and send a revised questionnaire to a new group of prospective jurors. Id., at 

12074–12075. 

The District Court denied Skilling’s motion without a 

hearing, stating in a brief order that it was “not persuaded

that the evidence or arguments urged by defendants . . . 

establish that pretrial publicity and/or community prejudice raise a presumption of inherent jury prejudice.” Id., 

at 14115. According to the court, the “jury questionnaires 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 9 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

sent to the remaining members of the jury panel and the 

court’s voir dire examination of the jury panel provide

adequate safeguards to defendants and will result in the

selection of a fair and impartial jury in this case.” Id., at 

14115–14116. The court did agree to delay the trial by 

two weeks, until January 30, 2006. 

The coming trial featured prominently in local news

outlets. A front-page, eve-of-trial story in the Chronicle

described “the hurt and anger and resentment” that had 

been “churn[ing] inside” Houstonians since Enron’s collapse. Id., at 39946. Again criticizing Lay and Skilling for 

offering a “doofus defense” (“a plea of not guilty by reason

of empty-headedness”), the paper stated that “Lay and

Skilling took hundreds of millions in compensation yet 

now fail to accept the responsibility that went with it.” 

Ibid. The article allowed that the defendants’ guilt,

“though perhaps widely assumed, remains even now an

assertion. A jury now takes up the task of deciding

whether that assertion is valid.” Id., at 39947. The next 

paragraph, however, assured readers that “it’s normal for 

your skin to crawl when Lay or Skilling claim with doeeyed innocence that they were unaware that something 

was amiss at Enron. The company’s utter failure belies

the claim.” Ibid. (one paragraph break omitted); see also 

id., at 39904 (declaring that Lay and Skilling would “have 

to offer a convincing explanation for how executives once 

touted as corporate geniuses could be so much in the dark 

about the illegal activities and deceptive finances of their 

own company”).

It is against this backdrop of widespread community 

impact and pervasive pretrial publicity that jury selection 

in Skilling’s case unfolded. Approximately 160 prospective

jurors appeared for voir dire at a federal courthouse located “about six blocks from Enron’s former headquarters.” 554 F. 3d, at 561. Addressing them as a group, the 

District Court began by briefly describing the case and 
10 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

providing a standard admonition about the need to be fair 

and impartial and to decide the case based solely on the

trial evidence and jury instructions. The court then asked 

whether anyone had “any reservations about your ability 

to conscientiously and fairly follow these very important 

rules.” App. 815a. Two individuals raised their hands 

and were called forward to the bench. One told the court 

that he thought Lay and Skilling “knew exactly what they 

were doing” and would have to prove their innocence. Id., 

at 818a–819a. The second juror, who had stated on his 

written questionnaire that he held no opinion that would 

preclude him from being impartial, declared that he 

“would dearly love to sit on this jury. I would love to 

claim responsibility, at least 1⁄12 of the responsibility, for

putting these sons of bitches away for the rest of their 

lives.” Id., at 819a–820a. The court excused both jurors 

for cause. 

The court proceeded to question individual jurors from

the bench. As the majority recounts, ante, at 7–8, the 

court asked them a few general yes/no questions about 

their exposure to Enron-related news, often variations of, 

“Do you recall any particular articles that stand out that

you’ve read about the case?” App. 850a. The court also 

asked about questionnaire answers that suggested bias,

focusing mainly on whether, notwithstanding seemingly 

partial comments, the prospective jurors believed they 

“could be fair” and “put the government to its proof.” Id., 

at 852a. Counsel were permitted to follow up on issues

raised by the court. The court made clear, however, that 

its patience would be limited, see, e.g., id., at 879a, and 

questioning tended to be brief—generally less than five

minutes per person. Even so, it exposed disqualifying 

biases among several prospective jurors who had earlier

expressed no concerns about their ability to be fair.7 

—————— 

7See App. 894a (Juror 43) (expressed the view that the defendants 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 11 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

Once it identified 38 qualified prospective jurors, the

court allowed the defense and Government to exercise 

their allotted peremptory challenges. This left 12 jurors

and 4 alternates, who were sworn in and instructed, for 

the first time, “not [to] read anything dealing with the 

case or listen to any discussion of the case on radio or 

television or access any Internet sites that may deal with 

the case” and to “inform your friends and family members 

that they should not discuss with you anything they may 

have read or heard about this case.” Id., at 1026a. Start 

to finish, the selection process took about five hours. 

Skilling’s trial commenced the next day and lasted four 

months. After several days of deliberations, the jury

found Skilling guilty of conspiracy, 12 counts of securities 

fraud, 5 counts of making false representations to auditors, and 1 count of insider trading; it acquitted on 9 insider trading counts. The jury found Lay guilty on all 

counts. 

On appeal, Skilling asserted that he had been denied his 

constitutional right to a fair trial before an impartial jury.

Addressing this claim, the Court of Appeals began by 

disavowing the District Court’s findings concerning “community hostility.” There was, the court concluded, “sufficient inflammatory pretrial material to require a finding 

of presumed prejudice, especially in light of the immense 

volume of coverage.” 554 F. 3d, at 559. “[P]rejudice was

[also] inherent in an alleged co-conspirator’s well­

—————— 

“stole money” from their employees); id., at 922a (Juror 55) (admitted 

that she “lean[ed] towards prejudging” the defendants); id., at 946a 

(Juror 71) (stated that she would place the burden of proof on the 

defendants); id., at 954a–960a (Juror 75) (indicated that she could not 

set aside her view that there was fraud at Enron); id., at 1003a–1006a 

(Juror 104) (stated that she questioned the defendants’ innocence and 

that she “would be very upset with the government if they could not 

prove their case”); id., at 1008a (Juror 112) (expressed that the view

that the defendants were guilty). 
12 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

publicized decision to plead guilty on the eve of trial.” 

Ibid. The Court of Appeals, moreover, faulted the District

Court for failing to “consider the wider context.” Id., at 

560. “[I]t was not enough for the court merely to assess

the tone of the news reporting. The evaluation of the 

volume and nature of reporting is merely a proxy for the 

real inquiry: whether there could be a fair trial by an

impartial jury that was not influenced by outside, irrelevant sources.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). 

According to the Court of Appeals, “[t]he district court

seemed to overlook that the prejudice came from more

than just pretrial media publicity, but also from the sheer

number of victims.” Ibid. 

Having determined that “Skilling was entitled to a 

presumption of prejudice,” the Court of Appeals proceeded 

to explain that “the presumption is rebuttable, . . . and the

government may demonstrate from the voir dire that an 

impartial jury was actually impanelled.” Id., at 561 (internal quotation marks omitted). Describing the voir dire 

as “exemplary,” “searching,” and “proper and thorough,” 

id., at 562, the court concluded that “[t]he government

[had] met its burden of showing that the actual jury that 

convicted Skilling was impartial,” id., at 564–565. On this 

basis, the Court of Appeals rejected Skilling’s claim and 

affirmed his convictions. 

II 

The Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury and

the due process right to a fundamentally fair trial guarantee to criminal defendants a trial in which jurors set aside 

preconceptions, disregard extrajudicial influences, and 

decide guilt or innocence “based on the evidence presented 

in court.” Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 723 (1961); see 

also Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U. S. 333, 362 (1966). 

Community passions, often inflamed by adverse pretrial 

publicity, can call the integrity of a trial into doubt. In 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 13 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

some instances, this Court has observed, the hostility of 

the community becomes so severe as to give rise to a “presumption of [juror] prejudice.” Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 

1025, 1031 (1984). 

The Court of Appeals incorporated the concept of presumptive prejudice into a burden-shifting framework:

Once the defendant musters sufficient evidence of community hostility, the onus shifts to the Government to

prove the impartiality of the jury. The majority similarly

envisions a fixed point at which public passions become so 

intense that prejudice to a defendant’s fair-trial rights

must be presumed. The majority declines, however, to

decide whether the presumption is rebuttable, as the

Court of Appeals held.

This Court has never treated the notion of presumptive

prejudice so formalistically. Our decisions instead merely 

convey the commonsense understanding that as the tide of 

public enmity rises, so too does the danger that the prejudices of the community will infiltrate the jury. The underlying question has always been this: Do we have confidence that the jury’s verdict was “induced only by evidence 

and argument in open court, and not by any outside influence, whether of private talk or public print”? Patterson v. 

Colorado ex rel. Attorney General of Colo., 205 U. S. 454, 

462 (1907).

The inquiry is necessarily case specific. In selecting a 

jury, a trial court must take measures adapted to the

intensity, pervasiveness, and character of the pretrial

publicity and community animus. Reviewing courts,

meanwhile, must assess whether the trial court’s procedures sufficed under the circumstances to keep the jury

free from disqualifying bias. Cf. Murphy v. Florida, 421 

U. S. 794, 799 (1975) (scrutinizing the record for “any

indications in the totality of circumstances that petitioner’s trial was not fundamentally fair”). This Court’s 

precedents illustrate the sort of steps required in different 
14 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

situations to safeguard a defendant’s constitutional right 

to a fair trial before an impartial jury.

At one end of the spectrum, this Court has, on rare 

occasion, confronted such inherently prejudicial circumstances that it has reversed a defendant’s conviction 

“without pausing to examine . . . the voir dire examination 

of the members of the jury.” Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 

U. S. 723, 727 (1963). In Rideau, repeated television

broadcasts of the defendant’s confession to murder, robbery, and kidnaping so thoroughly poisoned local sentiment as to raise doubts that even the most careful voir 

dire could have secured an impartial jury. A change of

venue, the Court determined, was thus the only way to

assure a fair trial. Ibid.; see also 6 W. LaFave, J. Israel, 

N. King, & O. Kerr, Criminal Procedure §23.2(a), p. 264

(3d ed. 2007) (hereinafter LaFave) (“The best reading of 

Rideau is that the Court there recognized that prejudicial

publicity may be so inflammatory and so pervasive that

the voir dire simply cannot be trusted to fully reveal the 

likely prejudice among prospective jurors”). 

As the majority describes, ante, at 14, this Court 

reached similar conclusions in Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 

532 (1965), and Sheppard, 384 U. S. 333. These cases 

involved not only massive pretrial publicity but also media 

disruption of the trial process itself. Rejecting the argument that the defendants were not entitled to relief from 

their convictions because they “ha[d] established no isolatable prejudice,” the Court described the “untoward circumstances” as “inherently suspect.” Estes, 381 U. S., at 

542, 544. It would have been difficult for the jurors not to

have been swayed, at least subconsciously, by the “bedlam” that surrounded them. Sheppard, 384 U. S., at 355. 

Criticizing the trial courts’ failures “to protect the jury

from outside influence,” id., at 358, the Court stressed 

that, “where there is a reasonable likelihood that prejudicial news prior to trial will prevent a fair trial, the judge 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 15 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

should continue the case until the threat abates, or transfer it to another [venue] not so permeated with publicity.” 

Id., at 363. Estes and Sheppard thus applied Rideau’s 

insight that in particularly extreme circumstances even 

the most rigorous voir dire cannot suffice to dispel the 

reasonable likelihood of jury bias. 

Apart from these exceptional cases, this Court has

declined to discount voir dire entirely and has instead

examined the particulars of the jury selection process to 

determine whether it sufficed to produce a jury untainted 

by pretrial publicity and community animus. The Court 

has recognized that when antipathy toward a defendant 

pervades the community there is a high risk that biased 

jurors will find their way onto the panel. The danger is

not merely that some prospective jurors will deliberately 

hide their prejudices, but also that, as “part of a community deeply hostile to the accused,” “they may unwittingly

[be] influenced” by the fervor that surrounds them. Murphy, 421 U. S., at 803. To assure an impartial jury in such

adverse circumstances, a trial court must carefully consider the knowledge and attitudes of prospective jurors 

and then closely scrutinize the reliability of their assurances of fairness. Cf. Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U. S. 719, 

729 (1992) (“[P]art of the guarantee of a defendant’s right 

to an impartial jury is an adequate voir dire to identify 

unqualified jurors”). 

Irvin offers an example of a case in which the trial

court’s voir dire did not suffice to counter the “wave of 

public passion” that had swept the community prior to the 

defendant’s trial. 366 U. S., at 728. The local news media 

had “extensively covered” the crimes (a murder spree), 

“arous[ing] great excitement and indignation.” Id., at 719 

(internal quotation marks omitted). Following Irvin’s 

arrest, the press “blanketed” the community with “a barrage of newspaper headlines, articles, cartoons and pictures” communicating numerous unfavorable details about 
16 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

Irvin, including that he had purportedly confessed. Id., at 

725. Nearly 90 percent of the 430 prospective jurors examined during the trial court’s voir dire “entertained some 

opinion as to guilt—ranging in intensity from mere suspicion to absolute certainty.” Id., at 727. Of the 12 jurors

seated, 8 “thought petitioner was guilty,” although “each 

indicated that notwithstanding his opinion he could render an impartial verdict.” Id., at 727, 724. 

Despite the seated jurors’ assurances of impartiality,

this Court invalidated Irvin’s conviction for want of due 

process. “It is not required,” this Court declared, “that the

jurors be totally ignorant of the facts and issues involved. 

. . . It is sufficient if the juror can lay aside his impression 

or opinion and render a verdict based on the evidence 

presented in court.” Id., at 722–723. The Court emphasized, however, that a juror’s word on this matter is not

decisive, particularly when “the build-up of prejudice [in 

the community] is clear and convincing.” Id., at 725. 

Many of Irvin’s jurors, the Court noted, had been influenced by “the pattern of deep and bitter prejudice shown

to be present throughout the community.” Id., at 727 

(internal quotation marks omitted). The Court did not 

“doubt [that] each juror was sincere when he said that he 

would be fair and impartial to [Irvin], but . . . [w]here so

many, so many times, admitted prejudice, such a statement of impartiality can be given little weight.” Id., at 

728. 

The media coverage and community animosity in Irvin 

was particularly intense. In three subsequent cases, this

Court recognized that high-profile cases may generate

substantial publicity without stirring similar public passions. The jury selection process in such cases, the Court 

clarified, generally need not be as exhaustive as in a case

such as Irvin. So long as the trial court conducts a reasonable inquiry into extrajudicial influences and the ability of prospective jurors to presume innocence and render 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 17 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

a verdict based solely on the trial evidence, we would 

generally have no reason to doubt the jury’s impartiality.8 

The first of these cases, Murphy, 421 U. S. 794, involved 

a well-known defendant put on trial for a widely publicized Miami Beach robbery. The state trial court denied 

his motion for a change of venue and during voir dire 

excused 20 of the 78 prospective jurors for cause. Distinguishing Irvin, this Court saw no indication in the voir 

dire of “such hostility to [Murphy] by the jurors who 

served in his trial as to suggest a partiality that could not 

be laid aside.” 421 U. S., at 800. Although some jurors

“had a vague recollection of the robbery with which [Murphy] was charged and each had some knowledge of [his]

past crimes,” “none betrayed any belief in the relevance of 

[Murphy’s] past to the present case.” Ibid.; see also ibid., 

n. 4 (contrasting a juror’s “mere familiarity with [a defendant] or his past” with “an actual predisposition against 

him”). “[T]hese indicia of impartiality,” the Court suggested, “might be disregarded in a case where the general 

atmosphere in the community or courtroom is sufficiently

inflammatory, but the circumstances surrounding [Murphy’s] trial [were] not at all of that variety.” Id., at 802. 

In a second case, Yount, 467 U. S. 1025, the defendant 

was granted a new trial four years after being convicted of

murder. He requested a change of venue, citing pretrial

publicity and the widespread local knowledge that he had 

previously been convicted and had made confessions that 

would be inadmissible in court. The state trial court 

denied Yount’s motion and seated a jury following a 10­

day voir dire of 292 prospective jurors. Nearly all of the 

—————— 

8Of course, even if the jury selection process is adequate, a trial court

violates a defendant’s right to an impartial jury if it erroneously denies 

a for-cause challenge to a biased venire member who ultimately sits on

the jury. See, e.g., United States v. Martinez-Salazar, 528 U. S. 304, 

316 (2000) (“[T]he seating of any juror who should have been dismissed

for cause . . . would require reversal”). 
18 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

prospective jurors had heard of the case, and 77 percent 

“admitted they would carry an opinion into the jury box.” 

Id., at 1029. Declining to grant relief on federal habeas

review, this Court stressed the significant interval between Yount’s first trial—when “adverse publicity and the 

community’s sense of outrage were at their height”—and

his second trial, which “did not occur until four years later, 

at a time when prejudicial publicity was greatly diminished and community sentiment had softened.” Id., at 

1032. While 8 of the 14 seated jurors and alternates had 

“at some time . . . formed an opinion as to Yount’s guilt,”

the “particularly extensive” voir dire confirmed that “time 

had weakened or eliminated any” bias they once may have

harbored. Id., at 1029–1030, 1034, n. 10, 1033. Accordingly, this Court concluded, “the trial court did not commit

manifest error in finding that the jury as a whole was

impartial.” Id., at 1032. 

This Court most recently wrestled with the issue of 

pretrial publicity in Mu’Min v. Virginia, 500 U. S. 415 

(1991). Mu’Min stood accused of murdering a woman

while out of prison on a work detail. Citing 47 newspaper

articles about the crime, Mu’Min moved for a change of 

venue. The state trial court deferred its ruling and attempted to seat a jury. During group questioning, 16 of 

the 26 prospective jurors indicated that they had heard

about the case from media or other sources. Dividing 

these prospective jurors into panels of four, the court 

asked further general questions about their ability to be

fair given what they had heard or read. One juror answered equivocally and was dismissed for cause. The 

court refused Mu’Min’s request to ask more specific questions “relating to the content of news items that potential

jurors might have read or seen.” Id., at 419. Of the 12 

persons who served on the jury, “8 had at one time or

another read or heard something about the case. None 

had indicated that he had formed an opinion about the 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 19 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

case or would be biased in any way.” Id., at 421. 

Rejecting Mu’Min’s attempt to analogize his case to 

Irvin, this Court observed that “the cases differ both in the 

kind of community in which the coverage took place and in

extent of media coverage.” 500 U. S., at 429. Mu’Min’s 

offense occurred in the metropolitan Washington, D. C., 

area, “which has a population of over 3 million, and in 

which, unfortunately, hundreds of murders are committed 

each year.” Ibid. While the crime garnered “substantial” 

pretrial publicity, the coverage was not as pervasive as in 

Irvin and “did not contain the same sort of damaging 

information.” 500 U. S., at 429–430. Moreover, in contrast to Irvin, the seated jurors uniformly disclaimed 

having ever formed an opinion about the case. Given 

these circumstances, this Court rebuffed Mu’Min’s assertion that the trial court committed constitutional error by 

declining to “make precise inquiries about the contents of 

any news reports that potential jurors have read.” 500 

U. S., at 424. The Court stressed, however, that its ruling

was context-specific: “Had the trial court in this case been 

confronted with the ‘wave of public passion’ engendered by 

pretrial publicity that occurred in connection with Irvin’s

trial, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment might well have required more extensive examination of potential jurors than it undertook here.” Id., at 

429. 

III 

It is necessary to determine how this case compares to

our existing fair-trial precedents. Were the circumstances 

so inherently prejudicial that, as in Rideau, even the most 

scrupulous voir dire would have been “but a hollow formality” incapable of reliably producing an impartial jury? 373 

U. S., at 726. If the circumstances were not of this character, did the District Court conduct a jury selection process 

sufficiently adapted to the level of pretrial publicity and 
20 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

community animus to ensure the seating of jurors capable 

of presuming innocence and shutting out extrajudicial

influences? 

A 

Though the question is close, I agree with the Court that

the prospect of seating an unbiased jury in Houston was

not so remote as to compel the conclusion that the District

Court acted unconstitutionally in denying Skilling’s motion to change venue. Three considerations lead me to this 

conclusion. First, as the Court observes, ante, at 16, the 

size and diversity of the Houston community make it

probable that the jury pool contained a nontrivial number 

of persons who were unaffected by Enron’s collapse, neutral in their outlook, and unlikely to be swept up in the 

public furor. Second, media coverage of the case, while 

ubiquitous and often inflammatory, did not, as the Court 

points out, ante, at 17, contain a confession by Skilling or 

similar “smoking-gun” evidence of specific criminal acts. 

For many prospective jurors, the guilty plea of codefendant and alleged co-conspirator Causey, along with the

pleas and convictions of other Enron executives, no doubt 

suggested guilt by association. But reasonable minds 

exposed to such information would not necessarily have 

formed an indelible impression that Skilling himself was 

guilty as charged. Cf. Rideau, 373 U. S., at 726 (a majority of the county’s residents were “exposed repeatedly and

in depth to the spectacle of Rideau personally confessing

in detail to the crimes with which he was later to be 

charged”). Third, there is no suggestion that the courtroom in this case became, as in Estes and Sheppard, a 

“carnival” in which the “calmness and solemnity” of the 

proceedings was compromised. Sheppard, 384 U. S., at 

358, 350 (internal quotation marks omitted). It is thus 

appropriate to examine the voir dire and determine 

whether it instills confidence in the impartiality of the 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 21 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

jury actually selected.9 

B 

In concluding that the voir dire “adequately detect[ed]

and defuse[d] juror bias,” ante, at 20, the Court downplays

the extent of the community’s antipathy toward Skilling 

and exaggerates the rigor of the jury selection process. 

The devastating impact of Enron’s collapse and the relentless media coverage demanded exceptional care on the

part of the District Court to ensure the seating of an impartial jury. While the procedures employed by the District Court might have been adequate in the typical highprofile case, they did not suffice in the extraordinary

circumstances of this case to safeguard Skilling’s constitutional right to a fair trial before an impartial jury. 

—————— 

9Whether the District Court abused its discretion in declining to

change venue pursuant to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is a 

different question. See Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 21(a) (“Upon the defendant’s motion, the court must transfer the proceeding against that

defendant to another district if the court is satisfied that so great a

prejudice against the defendant exists in the transferring district that

the defendant cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial there”). As this 

Court has indicated, its supervisory powers confer “more latitude” to set

standards for the conduct of trials in federal courts than in state courts. 

Mu’Min v. Virginia, 500 U. S. 415, 424 (1991). While the circumstances 

may not constitutionally compel a change of venue “without pausing to 

examine . . . the voir dire,” Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 723, 727 

(1963), the widely felt sense of victimhood among Houstonians and the 

community’s deep-seated animus toward Skilling certainly meant that

the task of reliably identifying untainted jurors posed a major challenge, with no guarantee of success. It likely would have been far 

easier to empanel an impartial jury in a venue where the Enron story 

had less salience. I thus agree with the Court of Appeals that “[i]t 

would not have been imprudent for the [District] [C]ourt to have

granted Skilling’s transfer motion.” 554 F. 3d 529, 558 (CA5 2009).

Skilling, however, likely forfeited any Rule 21 or supervisory powers

claim by failing to present it either in his opening brief before the Fifth 

Circuit, see id., at 559, n. 39, or in his petition for certiorari, cf. ante, at 

12, n. 11. 
22 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

In conducting this analysis, I am mindful of the “wide

discretion” owed to trial courts when it comes to juryrelated issues. Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 427; cf. ante, at 20– 

21. Trial courts are uniquely positioned to assess public 

sentiment and the credibility of prospective jurors. Proximity to events, however, is not always a virtue. Persons 

in the midst of a tumult often lack a panoramic view.

“[A]ppellate tribunals [thus] have the duty to make an

independent evaluation of the circumstances.” Sheppard, 

384 U. S., at 362. In particular, reviewing courts are well

qualified to inquire into whether a trial court implemented 

procedures adequate to keep community prejudices from

infecting the jury. If the jury selection process does not

befit the circumstances of the case, the trial court’s rulings

on impartiality are necessarily called into doubt. See 

Morgan, 504 U. S., at 729–730 (“‘Without an adequate 

voir dire the trial judge’s responsibility to remove prospective jurors who will not be able impartially to follow the

court’s instructions and evaluate the evidence cannot be 

fulfilled’” (quoting Rosales-Lopez v. United States, 451 

U. S. 182, 188 (1981) (plurality opinion))); see also 

Mu’Min, 500 U. S., at 451 (KENNEDY, J., dissenting) (“Our 

willingness to accord substantial deference to a trial 

court’s finding of juror impartiality rests on our expectation that the trial court will conduct a sufficient voir dire 

to determine the credibility of a juror professing to be

impartial”). 

1 

As the Court of Appeals apprehended, the District Court

gave short shrift to the mountainous evidence of public 

hostility. For Houstonians, Enron’s collapse was an event 

of once-in-a-generation proportions. Not only was the

volume of media coverage “immense” and frequently intemperate, but “the sheer number of victims” created a

climate in which animosity toward Skilling ran deep and 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 23 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

the desire for conviction was widely shared. 554 F. 3d, at 

559–560. 

The level of public animus toward Skilling dwarfed that 

present in cases such as Murphy and Mu’Min. The pretrial publicity in those cases consisted of dozens of news

reports, most of which were “largely factual in nature.” 

Murphy, 421 U. S., at 802. There was no indication that 

the relevant communities had been captivated by the

cases or had adopted fixed views about the defendants. In 

contrast, the number of media reports in this case reached

the tens of thousands, and full-throated denunciations of 

Skilling were common. The much closer analogy is thus to 

Irvin, which similarly featured a “barrage” of media coverage and a “huge . . . wave of public passion,” 366 U. S., at 

725, 728, although even that case did not, as here, involve 

direct harm to entire segments of the community.10 

Attempting to distinguish Irvin, the majority suggests

that Skilling’s economic offenses were less incendiary than 

Irvin’s violent crime spree and that “news stories about 

Enron contained nothing resembling the horrifying information rife in reports about Irvin’s rampage of robberies 

and murders.” Ante, at 28. Along similar lines, the District Court described “the facts of this case [as] neither 

heinous nor sensational.” App. to Brief for United States 

10a. The majority also points to the four years that

passed between Enron’s declaration of bankruptcy and the 

start of Skilling’s trial, asserting that “the decibel level of 

media attention diminished somewhat” over this time. 

Ante, at 17. Neither of these arguments is persuasive.

First, while violent crimes may well provoke widespread

community outrage more readily than crimes involving 

monetary loss, economic crimes are certainly capable of 

—————— 

10One of Skilling’s experts noted that, “[i]n cases involving 200 or 

more articles, trial judges granted a change of venue 59% of the time.”

App. ¶30, p. 611a. 
24 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

rousing public passions, particularly when thousands of

unsuspecting people are robbed of their livelihoods and 

retirement savings. Indeed, the record in this case is 

replete with examples of visceral outrage toward Skilling 

and other Enron executives. See, e.g., Record 39946 

(front-page, eve-of-trial story describing “the hurt and 

anger and resentment . . . churn[ing] inside” the people of 

Houston). Houstonians compared Skilling to, among other 

things, a rapist, an axe murderer, and an Al Qaeda terrorist.11 As one commentator observed, “[i]t’s a sign of how

shocked Houstonians are about Enron’s ignominious

demise that Sept. 11 can be invoked—and is frequently—

to explain the shock of the company’s collapse.” 3 Supp. 

Record 544. The bad blood was so strong that Skilling and 

other top executives hired private security to protect

themselves from persons inclined to take the law into their

own hands. See, e.g., App. 1154a (“After taking the temperature of Enron’s victims, [a local lawyer] says the 

Enron executives are wise to take security precautions”). 

Second, the passage of time did little to soften community sentiment. Contrary to the Court’s suggestion, ante, 

at 17, this case in no way resembles Yount, where, by the 

time of the defendant’s retrial, “prejudicial publicity [had]

greatly diminished” and community animus had signifi­

—————— 

11See, e.g., 554 F. 3d, at 559, n. 42 (“I’m livid, absolutely livid . . . . I 

have lost my entire friggin’ retirement to these people. They have

raped all of us” (internal quotation marks omitted)); App. 382a (“Hurting that many elderly people so severely is, I feel, the equivalent of 

being an axe murderer. His actions were just as harmful as an axe 

murderer to the [community]” (alteration in original)); id., at 1152a– 

1153a (“Not having the stuff of suicide bombers, Enron’s executive

pilots took full advantage of golden parachutes to bail out of their highflying corporate jet after setting the craft on a course to financial 

oblivion. In a business time frame, Enron pancaked faster than the

twin towers”); id., at 1163a (noting that “Skilling’s picture turned up 

alongside Osama bin Laden’s on ‘Wanted’ posters inside the company 

headquarters”). 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 25 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

cantly waned. 467 U. S., at 1032; see also ibid. (in the 

months preceding the defendant’s retrial, newspaper 

reports about the case averaged “less than one article per 

month,” and public interest was “minimal”). The Enron 

story was a continuing saga, and “publicity remained 

intense throughout.” 554 F. 3d, at 560. Not only did 

Enron’s downfall generate wall-to-wall news coverage, but 

so too did a succession of subsequent Enron-related 

events.12 Of particular note is the highly publicized guilty 

plea of codefendant Causey just weeks before Skilling’s 

trial. If anything, the time that elapsed between the

bankruptcy and the trial made the task of seating an

unbiased jury more difficult, not less. For many members

of the jury pool, each highly publicized Enron-related 

guilty plea or conviction likely served to increase their

certainty that Skilling too had engaged in—if not masterminded—criminal acts, particularly given that the media 

—————— 

12Among the highlights: In 2002, Skilling testified before Congress, 

and other Enron executives invoked their Fifth Amendment rights; 

Enron auditor Arthur Andersen was indicted, tried, convicted, and 

sentenced on charges of obstruction of justice; the Enron Task Force 

charged Enron CFO and Skilling-protégé Andrew Fastow with fraud, 

money laundering, and other crimes; and at least two Enron employees 

pleaded guilty on fraud and tax charges. In 2003, the Enron Task 

Force indicted numerous Enron employees, including Ben Glisan, Jr. 

(the company’s treasurer), Lea Fastow (wife of Andrew and an assistant 

treasurer), and more than half a dozen executives of Enron Broadband

Services; several Enron employees entered guilty pleas and received

prison sentences; and Enron filed its bankruptcy reorganization plan. 

In 2004, Andrew and Lea Fastow both pleaded guilty; Skilling and 

Causey were indicted in February; a superseding indictment adding

Lay was filed in July; a number of additional Enron employees entered

guilty pleas; and former Enron employees and Merrill Lynch bankers 

were defendants in a 6-week trial in Houston concerning an Enron deal

involving the sale of Nigerian barges. In 2005, a 3-month trial was held 

in Houston for five executives of Enron Broadband Services; various 

pretrial proceedings occurred in the run up to the trial of Skilling, Lay, 

and Causey; and, three weeks before the scheduled trial date, Causey

pleaded guilty to securities fraud. 
26 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

coverage reinforced this view. See supra, at 7–8. The trial 

of Skilling and Lay was the culmination of all that had 

come before. See Record 40002 (noting that “prosecutors

followed the classic pattern of working their way up

through the ranks”). As the Chronicle put it in July 2005,

shortly after the trial of several Enron Broadband Services

executives ended without convictions, “The real trial, the 

true measure of justice in the Enron saga, begins in January. Let the small fry swim free if need be. We’ve got

bigger fish in need of frying.” App. 1460a (paragraph 

breaks omitted); see also ibid. (“From the beginning, the

Enron prosecution has had one true measure of success:

Lay and Skilling in a cold steel cage”). 

Any doubt that the prevailing mindset in the Houston 

community remained overwhelmingly negative was dispelled by prospective jurors’ responses to the written

questionnaires. As previously indicated, supra, at 5–7, 

more than one-third of the prospective jurors either knew 

victims of Enron’s collapse or were victims themselves,

and two-thirds gave responses suggesting an antidefendant bias. In many instances their contempt for Skilling

was palpable. See nn. 4, 6, supra. Only a small fraction of 

the prospective jurors raised no red flags in their responses. And this was before Causey’s guilty plea and the

flurry of news reports that accompanied the approach of

trial. One of Skilling’s experts, a political scientist who

had studied pretrial publicity “for over 35 years” and 

consulted in more than 200 high-profile cases (in which he

had recommended against venue changes more often than

not), “c[a]me to the conclusion that the extent and depth of

bias shown in these questionnaires is the highest or at 

least one of the very highest I have ever encountered.” 

App. ¶¶2, 7, pp. 783a, 785a (emphasis deleted). 

2 

Given the extent of the antipathy evident both in the 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 27 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

community at large and in the responses to the written 

questionnaire, it was critical for the District Court to take

“strong measures” to ensure the selection of “an impartial

jury free from outside influences.” Sheppard, 384 U. S., at 

362. As this Court has recognized, “[i]n a community 

where most veniremen will admit to a disqualifying prejudice, the reliability of the others’ protestations may be 

drawn into question.” Murphy, 421 U. S., at 803; see also 

Groppi v. Wisconsin, 400 U. S. 505, 510 (1971) (“‘[A]ny

judge who has sat with juries knows that in spite of forms

they are extremely likely to be impregnated by the environing atmosphere’” (quoting Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 

309, 349 (1915) (Holmes, J., dissenting))). Perhaps because it had underestimated the public’s antipathy toward 

Skilling, the District Court’s 5-hour voir dire was manifestly insufficient to identify and remove biased jurors.13 

As an initial matter, important lines of inquiry were not 

—————— 

13The majority points out that the jury selection processes in the 

three previous Enron trials that had been held in Houston were similarly brief. See ante, at 23. The circumstances of those cases, however, 

were very different. In particular, the defendants had not been personally subjected to anything approaching the withering public criticism

that had been directed at Skilling and Lay. As earlier noted, see, e.g., 

supra, at 25–26, it was the trial of Skilling and Lay that was widely

seen as the climactic event of the Enron saga. Accordingly, my conclusion that the jury selection process in this unusual case did not suffice 

to select an impartial jury does not cast doubt on the adequacy of the 

processes used in the earlier Enron prosecutions. 

Moreover, in referencing the length of the voir dire in this case, I do 

not mean to suggest that length should be a principal measure of the

adequacy of a jury selection process. Trial courts, including this one,

should be commended for striving to be efficient, but they must always

take care to ensure that their expeditiousness does not compromise a

defendant’s fair-trial right. I also express no view with respect to courtled versus attorney-led voir dire. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 

24(a) gives district courts discretion to choose between these options,

and I have no doubt that either is capable of producing an impartial

jury even in high profile cases so long as the trial court assures that the

scope of the voir dire is tailored to the circumstances. 
28 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

pursued at all. The majority accepts, for instance, that 

“publicity about a codefendant’s guilty plea calls for inquiry to guard against actual prejudice.” Ante, at 19. 

Implying that the District Court undertook this inquiry, 

the majority states that “[o]nly two venire members recalled [Causey’s] plea.” Ibid. In fact, the court asked very

few prospective jurors any questions directed to their

knowledge of or feelings about that event.14 Considering

how much news the plea generated, many more than two

venire members were likely aware of it. The lack of questioning, however, makes the prejudicial impact of the plea 

on those jurors impossible to assess. 

The court also rarely asked prospective jurors to describe personal interactions they may have had about the 

case, or to consider whether they might have difficulty

avoiding discussion of the case with family, friends, or 

colleagues during the course of the lengthy trial. The 

tidbits of information that trickled out on these subjects 

provided cause for concern. In response to general mediarelated questions, several prospective jurors volunteered 

that they had spoken with others about the case. Juror 

74, for example, indicated that her husband was the “news

person,” that they had “talked about it,” that she had also 

heard things “from work,” and that what she heard was

“all negative, of course.” App. 948a. The court, however, 

did not seek elaboration about the substance of these 

interactions. Surely many prospective jurors had similar 

—————— 

14 Juror 33 brought up the plea in response to the District Court’s 

question about whether he “recall[ed] listening to any particular

programs about the case.” App. 888a. Juror 96, meanwhile, told the 

court that he read the “whole” Houston Chronicle every day, including

“all the articles about Enron.” Id., at 992a. The court, however, did not 

ask any questions designed to elicit information about the Causey plea.

Instead, Juror 96 remarked on the plea only after Skilling’s counsel 

managed to squeeze in a follow-up as to whether he had “read about

any guilty pleas in this case over the last month or two.” Id., at 993a. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 29 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

conversations, particularly once they learned upon receiving the written questionnaire that they might end up on

Skilling’s jury.

Prospective jurors’ personal interactions, moreover, may

well have left them with the sense that the community

was counting on a conviction. Yet this too was a subject

the District Court did not adequately explore. On the few 

occasions when prospective jurors were asked whether

they would feel pressure from the public to convict, they

acknowledged that it might be difficult to return home 

after delivering a not-guilty verdict. Juror 75, for instance, told the court, “I think a lot of people feel that 

they’re guilty. And maybe they’re expecting something to

come out of this trial.” Id., at 956a. It would be “tough,”

she recognized, “to vote not guilty and go back into the 

community.” Id., at 957a; see also id., at 852a (Juror 10) 

(admitting “some hesitancy” about “telling people the 

government didn’t prove its case”). 

With respect to potential nonmedia sources of bias, the 

District Court’s exchange with Juror 101 is particularly 

troubling.15 Although Juror 101 responded in the negative 

when asked whether she had “read anything in the newspaper that [stood] out in [her] mind,” she volunteered that 

she “just heard that, between the two of them, [Skilling 

and Lay] had $43 million to contribute for their case and

that there was an insurance policy that they could collect

on, also.” Id., at 998a. This information, she explained, 

“was just something I overheard today—other jurors 

talking.” Ibid. It seemed suspicious, she intimated, “to 

have an insurance policy ahead of time.” Id., at 999a. The 

court advised her that “most corporations provide insurance for their officers and directors.” Ibid. The court, 

however, did not investigate the matter further, even 

—————— 

15Portions of the voir dire transcript erroneously refer to this prospective juror as “Juror 110.” See, e.g., id., at 996a. 
30 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

though it had earlier instructed prospective jurors not to

talk to each other about the case. Id., at 843a. It is thus 

not apparent whether other prospective jurors also overheard the information and whether they too believed that

it reflected unfavorably on the defendants; nor is it apparent what other outside information may have been shared 

among the venire members. At the very least, Juror 101’s

statements indicate that the court’s questions were failing 

to bring to light the extent of jurors’ exposure to potentially prejudicial facts and that some prospective jurors were having difficulty following the court’s

directives. 

The topics that the District Court did cover were addressed in cursory fashion. Most prospective jurors were

asked just a few yes/no questions about their general 

exposure to media coverage and a handful of additional 

questions concerning any responses to the written questionnaire that suggested bias. In many instances, their

answers were unenlightening.16 Yet the court rarely 

sought to draw them out with open-ended questions about 

their impressions of Enron or Skilling and showed limited

patience for counsel’s followup efforts. See, e.g., id., at 

—————— 

16The court’s exchange with Juror 20 (who sat on the jury) is typical: 

“Q. Do you remember reading any particular articles about this case

or Mr. Lay or Mr. Skilling? 

“A. Not until just recently this week, but nothing—

“Q. And there have been a lot of articles this week. 

 “A. Yeah. 

“Q. Do you recall any particular articles you’ve read in the last week

or so? 

“A. Not word for word, no. 

“Q. Did you read all the articles in the Sunday “Chronicle”?

“A. Some of them. 

“Q. Which ones do you remember reading?

“A. The one about the trial, I think, and how the trial was going to 

work.” Id., at 873a–874a. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 31 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

879a, 966a.17 When prospective jurors were more forthcoming, their responses tended to highlight the ubiquity

and negative tone of the local news coverage, thus underscoring the need to press the more guarded members of 

the venire for further information.18 Juror 17, for example, mentioned hearing a radio program that very morning

in which a former Enron employee compared persons who

did not think Skilling was guilty to Holocaust deniers. See 

id., at 863a (“[H]e said he thought that he would find them

guilty automatically if he was on the jury because he said 

that it would be worse than a German trying to say that

they didn’t kill the Jews”).19 Other jurors may well have

encountered, and been influenced by, similarly incendiary 

rhetoric. 

These deficiencies in the form and content of the voir 

—————— 

17The majority’s criticism of Skilling’s counsel for failing to ask questions of many of the prospective jurors, cf. ante, at 23–24, is thus 

misplaced. Given the District Court’s express warning early in the voir 

dire that it would not allow counsel “to ask individual questions if

[they] abuse[d]” that right, App. 879a, counsel can hardly be blamed for

declining to test the court’s boundaries at every turn. Moreover, the 

court’s perfunctory exchanges with prospective jurors often gave 

counsel no clear avenue for further permissible inquiry. 18Although the District Court underestimated the extent of the community hostility, it was certainly aware of the ubiquity of the pretrial

publicity, acknowledging that “all of us have been exposed to substantial media attention about this case.” Id., at 841a. The court even 

made an offhand remark about one of the prior Enron prosecutions, 

“the Nigerian barge case,” apparently expecting that the prospective 

jurors would understand the reference. Id., at 840a. 19Taking a more defendant-favorable line than most prospective jurors, Juror 17 stated that he “thought the guy [on the radio] was pretty

narrow minded,” that “everyone should be considered innocent totally 

until they get a chance to come [to] court,” and that the Government 

might have been overzealous in some of its Enron-related prosecutions. 

Id., at 863a–864a. He added, however, that he “believe[d] there was

probably some accounting fraud [at Enron].” Id., at 864a. The District 

Court denied the Government’s request to remove Juror 17 for cause, 

but he did not ultimately sit on the jury. 
32 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

dire questions contributed to a deeper problem: The District Court failed to make a sufficiently critical assessment

of prospective jurors’ assurances of impartiality. Although 

the Court insists otherwise, ante, at 26, the voir dire transcript indicates that the District Court essentially took 

jurors at their word when they promised to be fair. Indeed, the court declined to dismiss for cause any prospective juror who ultimately gave a clear assurance of impartiality, no matter how much equivocation preceded it. 

Juror 29, for instance, wrote on her questionnaire that 

Skilling was “not an honest man.” App. 881a. During

questioning, she acknowledged having previously thought 

the defendants were guilty, and she disclosed that she lost 

$50,000–$60,000 in her 401(k) as a result of Enron’s collapse. Id., at 880a, 883a. But she ultimately agreed that

she would be able to presume innocence. Id., at 881a, 

884a. Noting that she “blame[d] Enron for the loss of her 

money” and appeared to have “unshakeable bias,” Skilling’s counsel challenged her for cause. Id., at 885a. The 

court, however, declined to remove her, stating that “she 

answered candidly she’s going to have an open mind now” 

and “agree[ing]” with the Government’s assertion that “we

have to take her at her word.” Id., at 885a–886a.20 As 

—————— 

20The majority attempts to downplay the significance of Juror 29 by 

noting that she did not end up on the jury because Skilling used a 

peremptory challenge to remove her. See ante, at 30, n. 31. The 

majority makes a similar point with respect to other venire members

who were not ultimately seated. See ante, at 24, n. 24. The comments 

of these venire members, however, are relevant in assessing the impartiality of the seated jurors, who were similarly “part of a community

deeply hostile to the accused” and who may have been “unwittingly

influenced by it.” Murphy v. Florida, 421 U. S. 794, 803 (1975); see also 

Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 728 (1961). Moreover, the fact that the 

District Court failed to remove persons as dubiously qualified as Juror 

29 goes directly to the adequacy of its voir dire. If Juror 29 made it 

through to the end of the selection process, it is difficult to have confidence in the impartiality of the jurors who sat, especially given how 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 33 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

this Court has made plain, jurors’ assurances of impartiality simply are not entitled to this sort of talismanic significance. See, e.g., Murphy, 421 U. S., at 800 (“[T]he juror’s 

assurances that he is equal to th[e] task cannot be dispositive of the accused’s rights”); Irvin, 366 U. S., at 728 

(“Where so many, so many times, admi[t] prejudice, . . . a 

statement of impartiality can be given little weight”). 

Worse still, the District Court on a number of occasions 

accepted declarations of impartiality that were equivocal 

on their face. Prospective jurors who “hope[d]” they could

presume innocence and did “not necessarily” think Skilling was guilty were permitted to remain in the pool. App.

932a, 857a. Juror 61, for instance, wrote of Lay on her 

questionnaire, “Shame on him.” Id., at 931a. Asked by

the court about this, she stated that, “innocent or guilty,

he was at the helm” and “should have known what was 

going on at the company.” Ibid.; see also id., at 934a 

(Skilling is “probably” “in the same boat as” Lay). The 

court then asked, “can you presume, as you start this trial,

that Mr. Lay is innocent?” Id., at 932a. She responded, “I 

hope so, but you know. I don’t know. I can’t honestly 

answer that one way or the other.” Ibid.; see also id., at 

933a (“I bring in my past history. I bring in my biases. I 

would like to think I could rise above those, but I’ve never 

been in this situation before. So I don’t know how I could 

honestly answer that question one way or the other. . . . I 

do have some concerns”). Eventually, however, Juror 61

answered “Yes” when the court asked if she would be able 

to acquit if she had “a reasonable doubt that the defendants are guilty.” Id., at 933a–934a. Challenging her for

cause, defense counsel insisted that they had not received 

“a clear and unequivocal answer” about her ability to be 

—————— 

little is known about many of them. Cf. 6 LaFave §23.2(f), at 288 (“The

responses of those not seated casts light on the credibility of the seated

jurors who were familiar with the same publicity”). 
34 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

fair. Ibid. The court denied the challenge, stating, “You

know, she tried.” Ibid. 

3 

The majority takes solace in the fact that most of the 

persons actually seated as jurors and alternates “specifically stated that they had paid scant attention to Enronrelated news.” Ante, at 24–25, and n. 26.21 In context, 

however, these general declarations reveal little about the

seated jurors’ actual knowledge or views or the possible

pressure they might have felt to convict, and thus cannot 

instill confidence that the jurors “were not under [the]

sway” of the prevailing community sentiment. Cf. ante, at 

25. Jurors who did not “get into details” of Enron’s complicated accounting schemes, App. 856a, nevertheless 

knew the outline of the oft-repeated story, including that 

Skilling and Lay had been cast as the leading villains. 

Juror 63, for instance, told the court that she “may have 

heard a little bit” about Enron-related litigation but had 

not “really pa[id] attention.” Id., at 935a. Yet she was 

clearly aware of some specifics. On her questionnaire,

despite stating that she had not followed Enron-related 

news, she wrote about “whistleblowers and Arthur Andersen lying about Enron’s accounting,” and she expressed 

the view that Skilling and Lay “probably knew they were

breaking the law.” Supp. App. 105sa–106sa. During

questioning, which lasted barely four minutes, the District 

Court obtained no meaningful information about the 

actual extent of Juror 63’s familiarity with the case or the 

basis for her belief in Skilling’s guilt. Yet it nevertheless 

—————— 

21The majority also notes that about two-thirds of the seated jurors 

and alternates (11 of 16) had no personal Enron connection. Ante, at 

24, and n. 25. This means, of course, that five of the seated jurors and 

alternates did have connections to friends or colleagues who had lost

jobs or money as a result of Enron’s collapse—a fact that does not strike 

me as particularly reassuring. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 35 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

accepted her assurance that she could “absolutely” presume innocence. App. 937a.22 

Indeed, the District Court’s anemic questioning did little

to dispel similar doubts about the impartiality of numerous other seated jurors and alternates. In my estimation, 

more than half of those seated made written and oral 

comments suggesting active antipathy toward the defendants. The majority thus misses the mark when it asserts

that “Skilling’s seated jurors . . . exhibited nothing like the

display of bias shown in Irvin.” Ante, at 29. Juror 10, for 

instance, reported on his written questionnaire that he 

knew several co-workers who owned Enron stock; that he 

personally may have owned Enron stock through a mutual 

fund; that he heard and read about the Enron cases from 

the “Houston Chronicle, all three Houston news channels, 

Fox news, talking with friends [and] co-workers, [and]

Texas Lawyer Magazine”; that he believed Enron’s collapse “was due to greed and mismanagement”; that “[i]f

[Lay] did not know what was going on in his company, he

was really a poor manager/leader”; and that the defendants were “suspect.” Supp. App. 11sa–19sa. During

questioning, he said he “th[ought]” he could presume

innocence and “believe[d]” he could put the Government to

its proof, but he also acknowledged that he might have

“some hesitancy” “in telling people the government didn’t

prove its case.” App. 851a–852a. 

—————— 

22As one of Skilling’s jury experts observed, there is a “tendency in

voir dire of jury pool members in high-profile cases to minimize their

exposure to media, their knowledge of prejudicial information, and any 

biases they may have.” App. 763a; see also id., at 637a (“Those who 

perceive themselves or wish to be perceived as good citizens are reluctant to admit they cannot be fair”). For this reason, the fact that “none 

of the seated jurors and alternates checked the ‘yes’ box” on the written 

questionnaire when “asked whether they ‘ha[d] an opinion about 

[Skilling],’ ” ante, at 26, is of minimal significance, particularly given 

that the Causey plea and the impending trial received significant

media coverage after the questionnaires were submitted. 
36 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

Juror 11 wrote that he “work[ed] with someone who

worked at Enron”; that he got Enron-related news from 

the “Houston Chronicle, Channel 2 News, Channel 13 

News, O’Reilly Factor, [and] talking with friends and coworkers”; that he regularly visited the Chronicle Web site;

that “greed on Enron’s part” caused the company’s collapse; and that “a lot of people were hurt financially.” 

Supp. App. 26sa–30sa. During questioning, he stated that

he would have “no problem” requiring the Government to 

prove its case, but he also told the court that he believed

Lay was “greedy” and that corporate executives are often 

“stretching the legal limits . . . . I’m not going to say that

they’re all crooks, but, you know.” App. 857a, 854a. 

Asked whether he would “star[t] the case with sort of an

inkling that because [Lay is] greedy he must have done

something illegal,” he offered an indeterminate “not necessarily.” Id., at 857.23 

—————— 

23Many other seated jurors and alternates expressed similarly troubling sentiments. See, e.g., Supp. App. 57sa–60sa (Juror 20) (obtained 

Enron-related news from the Chronicle and “local news stations”; 

blamed Enron’s collapse on “[n]ot enough corporate controls or effective

audit procedures to prevent mismanagement of corporate assets”; and 

was “angry that so many people lost their jobs and their retirement 

savings”); id., at 72sa–75sa (Juror 38) (followed Enron-related news

from various sources, including the Chronicle; was “angry about what

happened”; and “fe[lt] bad for those that worked hard and invested in

the corp[oration] only to have it all taken away”); id., at 117sa–118sa 

(Juror 64) (had several friends who worked at Enron and lost money;

heard about the Enron cases on the news; described the collapse as 

“sad” because “people lost jobs [and] money—lots of money”; and 

believed the Government “did the right thing” in its investigation); id., 

at 177sa–181sa (Juror 87) (received Enron-related news from the 

Chronicle, Channel 13 news, the O’Reilly Factor, Internet news sources, 

and friends, family, and co-workers; attributed Enron’s collapse to 

“[p]oor management [and] bad judgment—greed”; lamented “[t]he sad 

state of the long-term loyal employees who are left with nothing in their 

retirement accounts”; and “admire[d] [the] bravery” of Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins “for bringing the situation to the attention of

the public, which stopped things from getting worse”); id., at 191sa– 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 37 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

While several seated jurors and alternates did not make

specific comments suggesting prejudice, their written and

oral responses were so abbreviated as to make it virtually

impossible for the District Court reliably to assess

whether they harbored any latent biases. Juror 13, for 

instance, wrote on his questionnaire that he had heard 

about the Enron cases from the “[n]ews.” Supp. App. 42sa.

The court questioned him for two minutes, during which 

time he confirmed that he had “heard what’s on the news, 

basically,” including “that the trial had moved from the 

17th to the 31st.” He added that the story “was all over

the news on every detail of Enron.” App. 858a–860a. No 

meaningful information about his knowledge or attitudes

was obtained. Similarly, Juror 78 wrote that she had not 

followed Enron-related news but was aware that “[m]any 

people lost their jobs.” Supp. App. 151sa. The court questioned her for less than 90 seconds. During that time, she 

acknowledged that she had “caught glimpses” of the coverage and “kn[e]w generally, you know, that the company 

went bankrupt” and that there “were some employees that 

went off and did their own businesses.” App. 969a. Little 

more was learned.24 

—————— 

195sa (Juror 90) (heard Enron-related news from his wife, co-workers,

and television; wrote that “[i]t’s not right for someone . . . to take” away

the money that the “small average worker saves . . . for retirement all

his life”; and described the Government’s Enron investigation as “a

good thing”); id., at 221sa–225sa (Juror 113) (obtained information

about Enron from a “co-worker [who] was in the jury pool for Mrs.

Fastow’s trial”; worked for an employer who lost money as a result of

Enron’s collapse; found it “sad” that the collapse had affected “such a

huge number of people”; and thought “someone had to be doing something illegal”); id., at 236sa–237sa (Juror 116) (knew a colleague who 

lost money in Enron’s collapse; obtained Enron-related news from the 

“Houston Chronicle, Time Magazine, local TV news [and] radio, friends, 

family, [and] co-workers, [and] internet news sources”; and noted 

that what stood out was “[t]he employees and retirees that lost their

savings”). 24Several other jurors fell into this category. Juror 67 wrote on his 
38 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

In assessing the likelihood that bias lurked in the minds

of at least some of these seated jurors, I find telling the 

way in which voir dire played out. When the District 

Court asked the prospective jurors as a group whether 

they had any reservations about their ability to presume 

innocence and put the Government to its proof, only two

answered in the affirmative, and both were excused for 

cause. Id., at 815a–820a. The District Court’s individual 

questioning, though truncated, exposed disqualifying

prejudices among numerous additional prospective jurors

who had earlier expressed no concerns about their impartiality. See n. 7, supra. It thus strikes me as highly likely 

that at least some of the seated jurors, despite stating that

they could be fair, harbored similar biases that a more 

probing inquiry would likely have exposed. Cf. Yount, 

467 U. S., at 1034, n. 10 (holding that the trial court’s

“particularly extensive” 10-day voir dire assured the jury’s 

impartiality).25 

—————— 

questionnaire that he had heard about Enron from the Chronicle and

“Internet news sources.” Id., at 133sa. He was questioned for 90 

seconds, during which time he indicated that he had read an article on 

the Internet the preceding night “about the jury selection taking place 

today, stuff like that.” App. 944a. Juror 99 wrote that she had not 

heard or read about the Enron cases and did not “know anything about” 

Enron. Supp. App. 210sa. The District Court questioned her for barely 

one minute. She stated that she had “[n]ot really” learned more about

the case, but added that she had heard “this and that” from her parents. App. 995a–996a. The court did not press further. 25The majority suggests that the fact that Skilling “challenged only 

one of the seated jurors for cause” indicates that he did not believe the

other jurors were biased. Ante, at 30. Our decisions, however, distinguish claims involving “the partiality of an individual juror” from 

antecedent claims directed at “the partiality of the trial jury as a 

whole.” Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025, 1036 (1984); see also Frazier v. 

United States, 335 U. S. 497, 514 (1948) (“[T]he two sorts of challenge[s]

are distinct and are therefore to be dealt with separately”). If the jury

selection process does not, as here, give a defendant a fair opportunity

to identify biased jurors, the defendant can hardly be faulted for failing 

to make for-cause challenges. 
Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) 39 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

The majority suggests, ante, at 17–18, 30, that the jury’s

decision to acquit Skilling on nine relatively minor insider 

trading charges confirms its impartiality. This argument,

however, mistakes partiality with bad faith or blind vindictiveness. Jurors who act in good faith and sincerely 

believe in their own fairness may nevertheless harbor 

disqualifying prejudices. Such jurors may well acquit 

where evidence is wholly lacking, while subconsciously 

resolving closer calls against the defendant rather than

giving him the benefit of the doubt. Cf. United States v. 

McVeigh, 918 F. Supp. 1467, 1472 (WD Okla. 1996) (prejudice “may go unrecognized in those who are affected by it. 

The prejudice that may deny a fair trial is not limited to a

bias or discriminatory attitude. It includes an impairment

of the deliberative process of deductive reasoning from 

evidentiary facts resulting from an attribution to something not included in the evidence. That something has its

most powerful effect if it generates strong emotional responses”). In this regard, it is significant that the Government placed relatively little emphasis on the nine 

insider trading counts during its closing argument, declining to explain its theory on those counts in any detail

whatsoever. Record 37010. The acquittals on those

counts thus provide scant basis for inferring a lack of

prejudice. 

* * * 

In sum, I cannot accept the majority’s conclusion that 

voir dire gave the District Court “a sturdy foundation to 

assess fitness for jury service.” Cf. ante, at 29. Taken 

together, the District Court’s failure to cover certain vital

subjects, its superficial coverage of other topics, and its 

uncritical acceptance of assurances of impartiality leave 

me doubtful that Skilling’s jury was indeed free from the

deep-seated animosity that pervaded the community at 

large. “[R]egardless of the heinousness of the crime 
40 SKILLING v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

charged, the apparent guilt of the offender[,] or the station 

in life which he occupies,” our system of justice demands

trials that are fair in both appearance and fact. Irvin, 366 

U. S., at 722. Because I do not believe Skilling’s trial met

this standard, I would grant him relief.