Shirene Hernandez v. United States

The Court avoided a “vagueness shoal” in Skilling by holding that 18 U.S.C. § 1346’s prohibition on schemes targeting “the intangible right of honest services” forbids “only bribery and kickback schemes.” Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358, 368 (2010). The statute does not prohibit “undisclosed self-dealing by a public official,” id. at 409, though Petitioner and many like her have been convicted on just such a theory. The question presented here is whether after Skilling, must the “right of honest services” described in 18 U.S.C. § 1346 be defined in relation to a specific fiduciary duty against bribes or kickbacks, rather than a fiduciary duty against self-dealing, as presently permitted by the Ninth Circuit?