Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1059_e2p3.pdf
Page Number: 11

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

never had that as an object.  The use of Port Authority em-
ployees was incidental to—the mere cost of implementing—
the sought-after regulation of the Bridge’s toll lanes.

Start  with  this  Court’s  decision  in  Cleveland,  which  re-
versed another set of federal fraud convictions based on the 
distinction between property and regulatory power.  The de-
fendant there had engaged in a deceptive scheme to influ-
ence, to his own benefit, Louisiana’s issuance of gaming li-
censes.  The  Government  argued  that  his  fraud  aimed  to 
deprive the State of property by altering its licensing deci-
sions.  This Court rejected the claim.  The State’s “intangi-
ble rights of allocation, exclusion, and control”—its prerog-
atives over who should get a benefit and who should not—
do “not create a property interest.”  Ibid.  Rather, the Court 
stated, those rights “amount to no more and no less than” 
the State’s “sovereign power to regulate.”  Ibid.; see id., at 
20  (“[T]he  State’s  core  concern”  in  allocating  gaming  li-
censes “is regulatory”).  Or said another way: The defend-
ant’s  fraud  “implicate[d]  the  Government’s  role  as  sover-
eign” wielding “traditional police powers”—not its role “as 
property holder.”  Id., at 23–24.  And so his conduct, how-
ever deceitful, was not property fraud.

The same is true of the lane realignment.  Through that
action, Baroni and Kelly changed the traffic flow onto the
George  Washington  Bridge’s  tollbooth  plaza.  Contrary  to 
the  Government’s  view,  the  two  defendants  did  not  “com-
mandeer”  the  Bridge’s  access  lanes  (supposing  that  word 
bears its normal meaning).  They (of course) did not walk
away with the lanes; nor did they take the lanes from the 
Government by converting them to a non-public use.  Ra-
ther, Baroni and Kelly regulated  use of the lanes, as offi-
cials responsible for roadways so often do—allocating lanes 
as  between  different  groups  of  drivers.  To  borrow  Cleve-
land’s  words,  Baroni  and  Kelly  exercised  the  regulatory
rights of “allocation, exclusion, and control”—deciding that