Opinion ID: 530523
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: concurrent punishment for conflict of interest and bribery

Text: 24 Finotti also argues that he cannot be prosecuted and punished under both the conflict of interest and the bribery statutes. 5 However, concurrent prosecution and sentencing under the statutes contravenes neither the statutes themselves nor the Double Jeopardy Clause because the statutes define two separate crimes with independent elements. 25 There is no evidence in either the bribery or the conflict of interest statutes or their legislative histories that Congress intended prosecution or punishment under the two to be mutually exclusive. Congress did attempt in 1962 to integrate bribery and conflict of interest laws to comprise a consistent and coordinated whole. H.REP. No. 748, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. 2, 6 (1961). However, Congress's express aim was to eliminate overlap and inconsistency within the several pre-1962 bribery statutes and within the several pre-1962 conflict statutes, not between the conflict and bribery laws. Id. at 3, 7. 26 The court must therefore apply the test set out in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), to determine whether concurrent punishment is barred by double jeopardy. See United States v. Coachman, 727 F.2d 1293, 1299 (D.C.Cir.1984). Blockburger allows separate punishment for the same conduct under two statutes if  'each provision requires proof of a fact the other does not.'  Blockburger, 284 U.S. at 304, 52 S.Ct. at 182 (quoting Morey v. Commonwealth, 108 Mass. 433 (1871) (holding that prosecution for both lewd and lascivious cohabitation and adultery was not double jeopardy)). Finotti admits a federal official can violate the conflict statute without taking bribes. Brief of Appellant Lester H. Finotti, Jr., at 25. Similarly, an official can violate the bribery statute without violating the conflict statute if he declines to act on the matter for which he takes the bribe. While the conflict statute requires a showing that the official participate[d] personally and substantially in the government action, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208(a), actually being influenced in one's official acts is not an ingredient of the bribery offense. See 18 U.S.C. Sec. 201(c) (1982); Brewster, 408 U.S. at 526, 92 S.Ct. at 2544. Thus, punishment under both statutes does not constitute double jeopardy. 27