Black v. United States & Weyhrauch v. United States – Post-Argument SCOTUScast
SCOTUScast 01-20-2009 Featuring William Otis
SCOTUScast 01-20-2009 Featuring William Otis
On December 8, 2009, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Black v. United States & Weyhrauch v. United States. The issue in both cases is the scope of the “honest services” provision of 18 U.S.C. § 1346. Black argues that the provision does not apply to private individuals whose alleged "scheme to defraud" did not intend harm to the private party to whom "honest services" were owed. Weyrauch argues that a state official deprives the public of its right to "honest services" by failing to disclose material information only if the official violated a disclosure duty imposed by state law.
To discuss the case, we have William Otis, former Special Counsel to President George H.W. Bush.
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Former Adjunct Professor of Law; former Special Counsel to the President; former federal prosecutor, Georgetown Law (ret.)
Bill Otis is a former Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, a one-time federal prosecutor, and a former Special White House Counsel for President George H. W. Bush. After graduating from Stanford Law School, he started his career in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, then became chief of appeals for the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. In the 1980's he served on the Department's "Train the Trainer" team, which taught US Attorneys Offices across the county how to implement the then-new Sentencing Reform Act. He has held several posts in the federal government, including Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy and Counselor to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, in addition to the White House post. He has testified before Congress on issues in criminal procedure, illegal drugs, the US Sentencing Commission, and the death penalty, and has given numerous media interviews on those and other subjects. He currently teaches a seminar at Georgetown Law titled "Conservatism in Law in America" with his wife, Federalist Society co-founder Lee Liberman Otis.