The Supreme Court in Skilling v. United States held that the honest services class of mail and wire fraud offenses proscribes only bribery and kickbacks. In doing so, the Court took the middle ground between those who had urged that the definition be found unconstitutionally vague and those who favored sweeping and severe condemnation of public and private corruption. The federal mail and wire fraud statutes, 18 U.S.C. Sections 1341 and 1343, have been described as federal prosecutors' "true love," because they provide a basis for criminal liability in a broad spectrum of instances, and perhaps because they now carry a 20-year maximum sentence. For the purpose of mail and wire fraud prosecutions, federal jurisdiction is triggered when a person utilizes the federal postal service or an interstate carrier or sends a wire or radio communication. For example, the statutes may apply to schemes in which a FedEx package or an e-mail was sent. Convictions are obtained after a prosecutor achieves the more difficult step of proving that an intent to further a "scheme or artifice to defraud" accompanied the use of mail or wire. Over time, the scope of "scheme or artifice to defraud" has been a subject of contentious debate, particularly with regard to schemes to defraud victims of rights unrelated to pecuniary assets. Congress enacted the honest services statute, 18 U.S.C. Section 1346, in 1988 to incorporate within the ambit of the federal mail and wire fraud statutes schemes infringing on a victim's right to an official's or employee's "honest services" (i.e., an employee's honest work on behalf of a company or an official's honest public service). High-profile examples include a guilty plea by the lobbyist Jack Abramoff to conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and the indictment of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on honest services fraud and related charges. In the private sector, a notable case involves the conviction of Jeffrey Skilling, a former Enron executive. Although it is generally agreed that Congress has the authority to regulate the federal mail system and interstate wire communications, the sparse text and potential breadth of the honest services statute have prompted concerns regarding its constitutionality. Critics of the statute have argued that its mere "28 words" form a vague and unfair basis for federal criminal jurisdiction in many cases. Likewise, in an opinion dissenting from the Supreme Court's decision to deny review in a 2008 honest services case, Justice Scalia suggested that the statute's vague language invites federal prosecution of seemingly commonplace actions, such as "a mayor's attempt to use the prestige of his office to obtain a restaurant table without a reservation." Prompted by these and other considerations, federal courts have employed judicial interpretation techniques to avoid an overly broad reading of the statute. However, the federal courts of appeals disagreed regarding the appropriate approach. Perhaps in part to address the disagreement among the courts of appeals, the Supreme Court granted writs of certiorari in three cases, Weyhrauch v. United States , Black v. United States , and Skilling v. United States . The cases provided the Court's first opportunity to interpret the honest services fraud statute since it was enacted. Particularly with the decision to review Skilling , a highly publicized case connected with the collapse of Enron, the grants of certiorari garnered significant media attention. The Court's granting of the three writs within a relatively short time frame, less than a year after Justice Scalia's strongly worded dissent from the denial of certiorari in a case from the Court's 2008 term, prompted speculation that the Supreme Court might construe the statute narrowly. The Court in Skilling hardly wrote upon a clean slate. In 1872, Congress enacted the mail fraud statute "to curtail an epidemic of 'large-scale swindles, get-rich-quick schemes, and financial frauds.'" In 1952, it established an analogous federal crime, wire fraud, which applies to frauds committed by the use of wire, radio, or television communications in interstate commerce. Because the triggering activities for federal jurisdiction—use of mail or wire, including the Internet—are very common modes of communication, the federal mail and wire fraud statutes, 18 U.S.C. Sections 1341 and 1343, provide federal criminal jurisdiction over a broad range of fraudulent schemes. Except for the instrument (the mail system versus radio or wire) used to trigger federal jurisdiction, the mail and wire fraud statutes involve identical criminal conduct and are generally interpreted in the same manner by the federal courts. The mail fraud statute subjects anyone to criminal liability who, "having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises," deposits or causes to be deposited, knowingly causes to be delivered, or takes or receives, any "matter or thing whatever" in a post office or "authorized mail depository" or with "any private or commercial interstate carrier ... for the purpose of executing [a fraudulent] scheme." The wire fraud statute includes the same "having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud ..." and "for the purpose of executing such scheme" language but applies to transmittals of "any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds" "by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce." Generally speaking, criminal convictions require the government to prove both an actus reus (action) and a mens rea (mental state). As mentioned, the actus reus component of the federal mail and wire fraud statutes is satisfied with proof of a relatively innocuous action—namely, the very common act of using mail or telecommunications. For example, in United States v. Weyhrauch , the defendant's alleged scheme involved voting a particular way on state legislation regarding taxation of oil companies in exchange for an oil company hiring the defendant to provide legal services. However, the event triggering jurisdiction for purposes of the mail fraud statute was the defendant mailing his resumé to the oil company. Furthermore, in most cases, a prosecutor need not prove that a person actually used the mail or sent a wire or radio communication. Instead, it is generally sufficient that a defendant knew or should have foreseen that mail or wire would be used. In addition, it is usually not necessary to prove that a victim was actually harmed (i.e., that a person was deprived of property or other rights). Thus, the success of mail or wire fraud prosecutions typically turns on whether a defendant had the requisite mental state—namely, whether he or she intended to devise a "scheme or artifice to defraud." For both crimes, a prosecutor must prove that a defendant had specifically intended to perpetrate a fraud. Thus, the statutes are sometimes described as having a "specific intent" requirement. In the public corruption context, some courts of appeals have adopted relatively strict interpretations of this requirement. For example, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has noted that the intent requirement in the mail and wire fraud statutes requires that a prosecutor "indicate wrongdoing by a public official, [but] also demonstrate that the wrongdoing at issue [was] intended to prevent or call into question the proper or impartial performance of that public servant's official duties." Other decisions have tempered the extent of the specific intent hurdle, however. In a later case, the First Circuit allowed that the "prosecution may prove this requisite intent to defraud through circumstantial evidence." In addition, the scope of activities which may constitute fraud for the purpose of fulfilling the intent requirement is relatively broad. The Supreme Court has held that "scheme or artifice to defraud" extends to "any act or omission that 'wrong[s] one in his property rights by dishonest methods or schemes and usually signif[ies] the deprivation of something of value by trick, deceit, chicane or overreaching.'" Materiality presents a final component to the analysis in mail and wire fraud cases. In general, federal courts require that a scheme to defraud must be material; that is, it must have a natural tendency to induce reliance to the victim's detriment or to the offender's benefit. However, as discussed, mail and wire fraud are typically punishable regardless of the ultimate success of a fraudulent scheme. The honest services statute, 18 U.S.C. Section 1346, states that for the purposes of the federal crimes of mail and wire fraud, "the term 'scheme or artifice to defraud' includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services." Because of its sparse text but broad application, questions persisted regarding the scope of the statute and the range of situations to which it applied. The provision's historical context, together with case law predating the provision and various constitutional considerations, informed judicial interpretation of the statute. Beginning in the 1930s and 1940s, federal courts applied the federal mail fraud statute to frauds stemming from a breach of fiduciary duty. During the late 1970s and 1980s, using fiduciary duty as an analogy, federal courts first included public corruption within the types of activities which could give rise to a mail or wire fraud conviction. A theory suggested to justify honest services convictions in the public sector context "relie[d] on the idea that a public official acts as trustee for the citizens and the State ... and thus owes the normal fiduciary duties of a trustee, e.g., honesty and loyalty to them." In 1987, the Supreme Court halted such "honest services" convictions when it held, in McNally v. United States , that the definition of "any scheme or artifice to defraud" extended only to schemes targeting money or property interests and not other interests, such as an interest in honest services.