Supreme Court ruling clears way for dismissal of councilman's conviction based on lawful campaign contributions

Client(s) Sittenfeld, P.G.

Jones Day successfully represented former Cincinnati City Council member P.G. Sittenfeld in the U.S. Supreme Court by obtaining a unanimous ruling granting his petition for certiorari and vacating the Sixth Circuit's ruling that had upheld his criminal conviction. The case raised the question of when otherwise lawful political campaign contributions can be prosecuted as felony bribes.

In its petition for review, Mr. Sittenfeld argued that, under the Supreme Court's decision in McCormick v. United States, 500 U.S. 257 (1991), the government cannot base a bribery prosecution solely on lawful campaign contributions when, as in his case, the evidence is at best ambiguous as to whether they were made in exchange for any official act. In its Supreme Court brief, the government did not contest that Mr. Sittenfeld's conviction was legally indefensible or defend the correctness of the decision below. After Mr. Sittenfeld petitioned for Supreme Court review, the government filed a motion in the district court to dismiss his indictment following a Presidential pardon and supported the Supreme Court vacating the judgment below.

A bevy of amici supported Mr. Sittenfeld's petition in the Supreme Court including First Amendment scholars, former federal prosecutors, former Federal Election Commission officials, and former U.S. Attorneys General and White House Counsel from administrations on both sides of the political aisle.

Earlier in the case, Jones Day represented Mr. Sittenfeld before the Sixth Circuit where a divided panel narrowly upheld his conviction after taking the extraordinary step of granting him release from prison pending appeal following oral argument. All three members of the Sixth Circuit panel noted the case raised important issues. Judge Nalbandian’s majority opinion noted it was "hard" to decide whether a "blurr[y]" legal line was crossed here; Judge Murphy's concurrence "doubt[ed]… courts should be sending people to prison" on these facts; and Judge Bush's dissent described "the government's proof of Sittenfeld's alleged corrupt intent [as] entirely consistent with his having a lawful motive."

Sittenfeld v. United States, No. 25-49 (U.S.); No. 23-2840 (6th Cir.)