Welcome back to the Politics of Prosecution Podcast! This podcast examines the interaction between politics, broadly defined, and criminal prosecution on the local, state and federal levels. Our goal is to produce a variety of shows using different media. This is our second series. It highlights current events where the politics of prosecution intersect and is produced by student volunteers and High Point University Criminal Justice professor Scott Ingram.
The second episode in this series explores the arguments presented to the United States Supreme Court in the case of Kelly v. United States. The case questions the limits of property as applied to public corruption prosecutions. The case originated with the closure of several lanes of the George Washington Bridge that caused massive traffic delays. The Port Authority closed the lanes in retaliation for the Fort Lee, New Jersey mayor’s refusal to endorse New Jersey governor Chris Christie for re-election. Following her conviction for her role in the closure, Bridget Kelly appealed claiming that the scheme did not appropriate any property. She lost in each court up to the Supreme Court but may have found some sympathetic ears at the Supreme Court as the Court has taken steps in recent years to limit the scope of the fraud statutes, especially in public corruption cases. This episode explores whether that trend will continue.
The sources used for reference in this episode are:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1059/116047/20190917150049217_18-1059%20ts.pdf
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1059/123477/20191122174249018_18-1059bsUnitedStates.pdf
18 USC 666
18 USC 1343
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/483/350/
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/579/15-474/#tab-opinion-3590961
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2009/08-1394
https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/01/argument-analysis-justices-tackle-convictions-arising-from-bridgegate-scandal/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/18/opinions/supreme-court-bridgegate-case-rodgers/index.html
https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-files-supreme-court-brief-in-bridgegate-case
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/18-1059

A special thank you goes to HPU’s Media Services Librarian Josh Harris for allowing us to use the Mini-Studio and his outstanding recording equipment.
Taylor Irish performed the editing this week.
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