Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 6.0

2 

SNYDER v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

I 
A 
Federal and state law distinguish between two kinds of
payments  to  public  officials—bribes  and  gratuities.    As  a 
general  matter,  bribes  are  payments  made  or  agreed  to 
before an official act in order to influence the official with 
respect to that future official act.  American law generally
treats bribes as inherently corrupt and unlawful.

But  the  law’s  treatment  of  gratuities  is  more  nuanced. 
Gratuities are typically payments made to an official after 
an official act as a token of appreciation.  Some gratuities
can be problematic.  Others are commonplace and might be 
innocuous.  A family gives a holiday tip to the mail carrier. 
Parents  send  an  end-of-year  gift  basket  to  their  child’s 
public  school  teacher.  A  college  dean  gives  a  college
sweatshirt to a city council member who comes to speak at 
an event.  A state legislator’s neighbor drops off a bottle of 
wine to congratulate her for her work on a new law. 

As those examples suggest, gratuities after the official act 
are not the same as bribes before the official act.  After all, 
unlike  gratuities,  bribes  can  corrupt  the  official  act— 
meaning that the official takes the act for private gain, not 
for  the  public  good.    That  said,  gratuities  can  sometimes
also  raise  ethical  and  appearance  concerns.  For  that 
reason, Congress, States, and local governments have long 
regulated gratuities to public officials. 

Not  surprisingly,  different  governments  draw  lines  in 
different  places.  For  example,  some  States  allow  public 
officials  to  accept  gifts  below  certain  threshold  amounts. 
E.g.,  Colo.  Const.,  Art.  XXIX,  §3(6)  (allowing  gifts  under 
$75);  Kan.  Stat.  Ann.  §46–237(a)(1)  (2021)  (allowing  gifts
under $40 per year); Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 268A, §§3(b), (f), 
23(b),  (f)  (2020)  (allowing  gifts  under  $50);  W.  Va.  Code 
Ann. §61–5A–6(b) (Lexis 2020) (allowing “trivial” gifts that 
pose “no substantial risk of affecting official impartiality”).   
Some States bar accepting any gifts for specific activities,