"Honest Services At Risk"

In 1987, with its decision in McNally v. United States, the Supreme Court limited the broad use of one of the federal prosecutors' main statutes when they decided that "[t]he mail fraud statute clearly protects property rights,...[it] does not refer to the intangible right of the citizenry to good government." That decision invalidated the Government's often used theory that a defendant who deprived the citizens of the intangible right to honest and impartial services has committed fraud. Congress responded shortly thereafter to vitiate this ruling with the passage of Title 18, United States Codes, Section 1346, which defines "scheme or artifice to defraud," as used in the mail and wire fraud statutes (18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1343), to include "a scheme or artifice to defraud another of the intangible right of honest services."