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From Quora,
William Malzone
20 Years Military ,Civilian,and Contractor with US IntelAuthor has 3.1K answers and 3M answer views2y

There is a reason the trial court was a conviction and the appellate court upheld it but SCOTUS overturned it and it has nothing to do with Smith. SCOTUS changed how the law was interpreted in the McDonnell decision.

Context matters. Prior to the McDonnell decision the legal standard for bribery included arranging a meeting. Basically, a contractor wanting to do work for the state of Virginia wanted a meeting arranged with the state agency overseeing it. In order to get that they offered a deal to McDonnell they gave his daughter a job in exchange for him arranging a meeting with that state agency. (That fact is not in dispute).

The McDonnell decision another things says that solely arranging a meeting is not a thing of value, bribes don’t need to be just cash but the bribe must have value. Like for example If McDonnell had said If you give me a handshake I’ll set up the meeting. Well that’s not a bribe a handshake doesn’t have value. Some of those value items include official acts. Arranging a meeting used to count for bribery.

That is why the judge instructed the trial jury that arranging a meeting was a “thing of value” it’s why the appellate court on review upheld the conviction. The Supreme Court looked at and said you know what previous meetings could be a thing of value we’ve relooked at the issue and we think the previous SCOTUS ruling is wrong here is the new standard.

That doesn’t even come close to making him biased. If you were a prosecutor before Roe and charged a doctor with providing an abortion you are not biased you are simply doing your job even if the court later decided that nope totally legal and cannot be enforced. Same thing for Smith he was enforcing the law SCOTUS changed it (again the trial court and appellate court confirmed because it used to be the standard).

“The uncontrolled power of criminal prosecutors is a threat” - this is simply wrong it isn’t a quote from the ruiling.

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