Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 3

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

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Syllabus 

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 
up  to  only  2  years.  If  the  Government  were  correct  that  §666  also 
covered  gratuities,  Congress  would  have  inexplicably  authorized
punishing gratuities to state and local officials five times more severely 
than gratuities to federal officials—10 years for state and local officials
compared  to  2  years  for  federal  officials.    The  Government  cannot 
explain why Congress would have created such substantial sentencing
disparities.  Pp. 9–10.

(5) Interpreting  §666  as  a  gratuities  statute  would  significantly 
infringe on bedrock federalism principles.  Generally, States have the 
“prerogative to regulate the permissible scope of interactions between 
state officials and their constituents.”  McDonnell v. United States, 579 
U. S.  550,  576.    The  differing  approaches  by  the  state  and  local 
governments  reflect  policy  judgments  about  when  gifts  expressing
appreciation  to  public  officials  for  their  past  acts  cross  the  line  from 
the  innocuous  to  the  problematic.   Those  carefully  calibrated  policy
decisions would be gutted if the Court were to accept the Government’s
interpretation of §666.  Reading §666 to create a federal prohibition on 
gratuities would suddenly subject 19 million state and local officials to
a new and different regulatory regime for gratuities.  The Court should 
hesitate  before  concluding  that  Congress  prohibited  gratuities  that 
state and local governments have allowed.  After all, Congress does not
lightly override state and local governments on such core matters of 
state and local governance.  Pp. 10–11. 

(6) The  Government’s  interpretation  of  the  statute  would  create
traps for unwary state and local officials.  Sun-Diamond, 526 U. S., at 
411.  The  Government  says  that  the  statute  would  not  cover 
“innocuous” or “obviously benign” gratuities, but the Government does 
not identify any remotely clear lines separating such a gratuity from a
criminal gratuity.  The Government simply opines that state and local 
officials  may  not  accept  wrongful  gratuities.    The  Government’s  so-
called guidance would leave state and local officials entirely at sea to 
guess about what gifts they are allowed to accept under federal law, 
with the threat of up to 10 years in federal prison if they happen to 
guess  wrong.   That  is  not  how  federal  criminal  law  works.   And  the 
Court has rejected the view that it should construe a criminal statute 
on the assumption that the Government will use it responsibly.  See 
McDonnell, 579 U. S., at 576.  Pp. 11–14.

(b) Faced with the phalanx of difficulties with its interpretation of 
§666, the Government’s argument boils down to one main point—that 
§666  uses  the  term  “rewarded”  as  well  as  “influenced.”    The