The Unlimited Prosecution Act

Brian Walsh / March 24, 2009

In today’s Politico, attorneys Peter Zeidenberg and William Minor point out that the Public Corruption Prosecution Improvements Act of 2009, which recently passed out of Sen. Patrick Leahy’s Senate Judiciary Committee, authorizes $100 million for new federal prosecutors and agents to root out “public corruption” using the federal “honest services” statute and other overly broad federal statutes.

Under this amorphous, poorly worded statute, anyone can be subjected to 20 years in prison for allegedly depriving anyone else of “the intangible right of honest services.” What this right encompasses – as well as what it means to deprive someone of it – is left undefined in the statute. (more…)