Jonathan P. Baird lives in Wilmot.

In a term featuring multiple precedent-shattering decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a shocker in Snyder v. United States. The Court narrowed the definition of public corruption in a case that centered on the distinction between bribery and gratuities. The Court majority let a grifting public official off the hook.

Because there were so many big cases on the docket this term, this one slid by, escaping attention, even though it is consequential.

The facts in the case were straightforward. James Snyder, the former mayor of Portage, Indiana steered business to a local truck dealership. The city purchased five trash trucks from the dealership for a cost of $1.1 million. After the deal, Snyder went to the dealership and told them, “I need money.” He asked for $15,000. The dealership gave him $13,000.

A federal statute prohibits state or local officials from “corruptly” accepting “anything of value from any person intending to be influenced or rewarded for an official act.” The business had to be for a value of at least $5,000. Snyder testified that the $13,000 payment he received was for consulting services although there was no evidence he did any consulting.

After a two-week trial, the federal jury disagreed with Snyder and convicted him. They found he had been corruptly rewarded. The judge sentenced him to one year and nine months in prison.

Although it seemed like a Hail Mary pass, Snyder appealed and argued that the law in question only made bribes illegal, not gratuities. Snyder argued that bribes were, by definition, payments made before an official act. Gratuities were payments made after an official act as a token of appreciation. So bribes influence a future decision and gratuities reward past ones.

Snyder lost at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals but it was a different story at the Supreme Court. In an opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Court majority reversed Snyder’s conviction. Kavanaugh wrote that it was nearly impossible to figure out what constituted a corrupt gift or gratuity. He puzzled over a situation that was not ambiguous. He cited hypothetical scenarios that were vastly different than the facts of the case to make it seem like this was a difficult case to decide.

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In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissected the Kavanaugh opinion. To quote her: “Snyder’s absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s Court could love.”

That sentence alone spoke volumes. The Court is watering down public corruption law in a way that says it is fine for people with vast money to use it to influence state and local government officials. By almost any standard, $13,000 is not small change but the conservatives on the Court wanted to green-light such “gratuities.”

Rather than fighting corruption, the Court imposed a limit on the government’s ability to go after bad actors. It is a “spoils belong to the powerful” jurisprudence.

Snyder’s case has a resonance with the Supreme Court’s current ethical problems as exemplified by Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas too has taken “gratuities” although his are in the $4 million range. I think Justice Jackson had Thomas in mind when she wrote about the reading of the statute as one “only today’s Court could love.” That was her polite way of saying Thomas was bought off.

The Snyder case did not come out of nowhere. It needs to be seen as part of a historical pattern in which the Court has defined down what constitutes public corruption so more people can get away with unethical behavior. I would go back to Citizens United. For decades even before the Citizens United decision, a coterie of ultra-rich conservatives wanted to influence American politics by out-sized spending. Citizens United was the vehicle that allowed the ultra-rich to get around campaign finance law.

Other Supreme Court decisions in the last decade like McDonnell v. United States and the Bridgegate case from New Jersey followed the go-easy-on-corruption trend. The Court turned definitions of corruption into paper tigers.

The go-easy-on-crime doesn’t extend to blue collar criminal defendants, ever. But for white collar defendants, venality is in vogue. The implicit message is rewards are waiting for those unafraid to test the limits of public corruption law. Thomas is the Court’s own example and the chief justice says nothing.

In the past, a case like Snyder would have been taboo but with this Court both transparency and accountability are out. It is not surprising that a Court that won’t regulate its own ethics would have such a softened and cavalier attitude toward the ethics of public officials.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) calls the Supreme Court a captured court because dark money has re-made the Court, weakened democracy, and consistently favored the billionaire class. Decisions like Snyder are what you can expect from a captured court. “Gratuities” are there for the taking.