Opinion ID: 3026413
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The “Stream of Benefits” Instruction

Text: Holck and Umbrell next claim that the District Court misstated the law when instructing the jury on the bribery theory of honest services fraud, such that the jury was invited to convict if it concluded that Holck and Umbrell had provided benefits to Kemp in a “general attempt to curry favor.” We exercise plenary review over whether the District Court correctly stated the law, and consider “whether the charge, taken as a whole, properly apprise[d] the jury of the issues and the applicable law.” Armstrong v. Burdette Tomlin Mem’l Hosp., 438 F.3d 240, 245 (3d Cir. 2006) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). While we agree with Holck and Umbrell that bribery may not be founded on a mere intent to curry favor, we nevertheless reject their challenge to the District Court’s instructions. As Holck and Umbrell recognize, there is a critical difference between bribery and generalized gifts provided in an attempt to build goodwill. The Supreme Court has explained, in interpreting the federal bribery and gratuity statute, 18 U.S.C. § 201, that bribery requires a quid pro quo, which includes an “intent ‘to influence’ an official act or ‘to be influenced’ in an official act.” United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers of Cal., 526 U.S. 398, 404 (1999) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)). This may be contrasted to both a gratuity, which “may constitute merely a reward for some future act that the public official will take (and may already have determined to take), or for a past act that he has already taken,” and to a noncriminal gift extended to a public official merely “to build a reservoir of goodwill that might ultimately affect one or more of a multitude of unspecified acts, now and in the future.” Id. at 405. This discussion is equally applicable to bribery in the honest services fraud context, and we thus conclude that bribery requires “a specific intent to give or receive something of value in exchange for an official act.” Id. at 404-05. Holck and Umbrell arrive at their conclusion that this requirement was elided by the instructions only by reading certain sections of the jury charge out of context, which “is not the way we review jury instructions, because a single instruction 36 to a jury may not be judged in artificial isolation, but must be viewed in the context of the overall charge.” United States v. Park, 421 U.S. 658, 674 (1975). Read fairly, the instructions proffered by the District Court repeatedly emphasized the critical quid pro quo, explaining that “[t]o establish such bribery the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a quid pro quo, . . . that the benefit was offered in exchange for the official act.” (App. at 9642.) The Court continued, “where there is a stream of benefits given by a person to favor a public official, . . . it need not be shown that any specific benefit was given in exchange for a specific official act. If you find beyond a reasonable doubt that a person gave an official a stream of benefits in implicit exchange for one or more official acts, you may conclude that a bribery has occurred.” (App. at 9643.) Finally, the Court explained, “[t]o find the giver of a benefit guilty, you must find that the giver had a specific intent to give . . . something of value in exchange for an official act, that is, that the accused had the specific intent to engage in such a quid pro quo exchange.” (App. at 9643-44.) This instruction correctly described the law of bribery, and left no danger that the jury would convict upon merely finding that Holck and Umbrell provided benefits to Kemp in a general attempt to curry favor or build goodwill. Moreover, we agree with the government that the District Court’s instruction to the jury that it could convict upon finding a “stream of benefits” was legally correct. The key to whether a gift constitutes a bribe is whether the parties intended for the benefit to be made in exchange for some official action; the government need not prove that each gift was provided with the intent to prompt a specific official act. See United States v. Jennings, 160 F.3d 1006, 1014 (4th Cir. 1998). Rather, “[t]he quid pro quo requirement is satisfied so long as the evidence shows a ‘course of conduct of favors and gifts flowing to a public official in exchange for a pattern of official actions favorable to the donor.” Id. Thus, “payments may be made with the intent to retain the official’s services on an ‘as needed’ basis, so that whenever the opportunity presents itself the official will take specific action on the payor’s behalf.” Id.; see also United States v. Sawyer, 85 F.3d 713, 730 (1st Cir. 1996) (stating that “a person with continuing and long-term interests before an official 37 might engage in a pattern of repeated, intentional gratuity offenses in order to coax ongoing favorable official action in derogation of the public’s right to impartial official services”). While the form and number of gifts may vary, the gifts still constitute a bribe as long as the essential intent – a specific intent to give or receive something of value in exchange for an official act – exists. This theory was accurately and entirely presented to the jury in the jury instructions, and accordingly, we reject Holck and Umbrell’s argument that the instructions as proffered were inadequate.