Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 13

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

on  §201(c),  the  gratuities  statute.    It  therefore  would  be 
strange to interpret §666, as the Government suggests, to
mean the same thing now that it meant back in 1984, before 
the 1986 amendment.  We must respect Congress’s choice 
in 1986. 

Third is the statutory structure.  The Government posits
that Congress prohibited bribes and gratuities to state and 
local officials in a single statutory provision, §666(a)(1)(B). 
Such a statute would be highly unusual, if not unique.  The 
Government identifies no other provision in the U. S. Code 
that prohibits bribes and gratuities in the same provision.4 
That  is  because  bribery  and  gratuities  are  “two  separate 
crimes”  with  “two  different  sets  of  elements.”    Sun-
Diamond, 526 U. S., at 404.  Therefore, §201(b) makes it a
crime for federal officials to accept bribes, while a separate
provision, §201(c), makes it a crime for federal officials to 
accept  certain  gratuities.  The  absence  of  a  separate
gratuities provision in §666 reinforces that §666 is a bribery 
statute  for  state  and  local  officials,  not  a  two-for-one 
bribery-and-gratuities statute. 

Fourth  are  the  statutory  punishments.    For  federal 
officials, Congress has separated bribery and gratuities into 
two distinct provisions of §201 for good reason:  The crimes 
receive  different  punishments  that  “reflect  their  relative 
seriousness.”    Sun-Diamond,  526  U. S.,  at  405.    For 
example, accepting a bribe as a federal official is punishable 
by  up  to  15  years  in  prison,  while  accepting  an  illegal
gratuity as a federal official is punishable by only up to 2 
years.  Compare §201(b) with §201(c). 

—————— 

4 At most, the Government points to 18 U. S. C. §215(a)(2), which bars 
employees  of  financial  institutions  from  “corruptly”  soliciting  or 
accepting “anything of value . . . intending to be influenced or rewarded
in connection with any business or transaction of such institution.”  That 
language simply mirrors §666’s language.  But because this Court has 
never  interpreted  §215  (and  therefore  has  never  said  whether  §215 
covers only bribery), that statute is a null data point.