Marvelling at the audacity to say "some people give the mailman a hamper or send a bottle of wine to a teacher" when the statute on its face talks about $5k+ value bribes
For anyone wondering, the instant case here was GLPB cutting a $13k check to the mayor of Portage for "consulting services" after the mayor put a friend Reeder in charge of contracts. Reeder testified at trial that he intentionally drafted bid specifications to favor GLPB for contracts worth $1.125m
the structure of all these opinions (I'm thinking also of McDonnell) is that there is some political practice the Justices think *of course* is legitimate, then they come up with a reading of the statute to prevent a prosecutor from charging their made-up case, then apply that to the actual facts.
That's exactly it. They have this increasingly annoying habit of saying "this case is about a man who stomps kittens in his kitten stomping machine. But if it wasn't that and was about eating ice-cream, then making it illegal would be obviously dumb. And so for that reason, kitten stomping is fine"
Ironically, the cases and controversies clause is there *precisely to avoid* turning direct cases into a philosophical polemic where you end up allowing gross miscarriages of justice to box shadows at fictional ones.
