This page includes press and commentary on honest services fraud and public corruption before, leading up to, and following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Skilling v. United States .
Post-Skilling Press and Commentary
"When is a campaign contribution a bribe? The Washington Post , August 12, 2012.
“Abbe Lowell: Prosecutors’ bad decisions should have real costs The Washington Post , June 21, 2012. [Related article ].
“Edwards Mistrial Puts Sharp Focus On Justice Department The BLT: The Blog of LegalTimes , May 31, 2012. [More ]
“Legal experts question theory of Edwards case Politico , April 25, 2012. [More coverage here here
“In Alabama, 2nd Corruption Trial Ends in Acquittals The New York Times , March 7, 2012.
“Distinguishing between the ‘public corruption amendment’ and fighting public corruption PointofLaw.com , February 13, 2012.
“STOCK Act’s expansive jurisdiction could lead to abuse of power The Hill , February 10, 2012. [More commentary ]
"Stewart and Wayne: Broader DOJ Authority to Prosecute Public Officials is Wrong Priority Roll Call , November 30, 2011.
"Bruno Faces Retrial After Panel Vacates Corruption Convictions New York Law Journal , November 17, 2011. [Opinion and more coverage ]
"Federal Judge Denies John Edwards’ Bid to Dismiss Campaign Case The Associated Press , October 27, 2011.
"Judge Sentences Former Lobbyist Kevin Ring to 20 Months National Law Journal , October 26, 2011.
Continue reading below
Featured Products
2025 Year-End Ethics Grab
Earn your ethics credits for 2025 by learning from some of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country! This comprehensive year-end ethics program brings together three of NACDL’s most practical and timely presentations—helping defense lawyers meet their ethics credit requirements while sharpening their understanding of the professional challenges facing today’s practice. This special compilation includes the highest-rated legal ethics presentations delivered at NACDL conferences in 2025!
Using AI for Trial Preparation: Managing Overwhelming Caseloads
This 1-hour program shows defense lawyers how to use AI to tame heavy caseloads while staying ethical. Learn to auto-summarize discovery into timelines, relationship maps, and contradiction charts; draft and refine cross-exams; analyze juror questionnaires; and test case theories. Set up workflows and agents to monitor law, media, and social posts. Build simple custom trial tools. Leverage sentencing data for mitigation. Includes confidentiality, verification, and disclosure best practices to boost accuracy and save hours weekly.
Pozner's Red Book on Cross: Lessons in Advanced Cross-Examination
This compact handbook brings together over 20 of Larry Pozner’s most powerful cross-examination articles, covering core principles and advanced strategies for witness control, impeachment, chaptering, and framing reasonable doubt. Packed with scripting examples, real-world scenarios, and tactical insight, it shows how to press or pivot with purpose, drop weak points, and keep cross disciplined. Whether dismantling an officer’s account, challenging an eyewitness, or exposing investigative gaps, Pozner’s field manual delivers courtroom-ready tools to win.
Exposing Lies and False Testimony in Criminal Trials
When a case hinges on credibility, the lawyer who can expose a lie controls the outcome. This program delivers a courtroom-ready system to detect deception, dismantle false testimony, and turn credibility attacks into acquittals or favorable pleas. Learn research-backed methods to spot dishonesty in interviews, build an impeachment toolkit under the rules of evidence, and craft narratives that reveal bias, motive, and contradictions—arming you to challenge police, experts, informants, and eyewitnesses with precision.
Objections That Stick! How to Exclude, Preserve, and Persuade
If you’re not objecting, you might be conceding—learn how to stop giving ground.
This program delivers practical strategies for making effective objections in criminal trials, especially drug cases. Learn how to challenge hearsay, 404(b) evidence, improper opinions, and prejudicial testimony. You’ll get objection language, methods for preserving error, and tactics for handling misconduct in closing arguments. With real-world examples and trial-tested tools, this program helps defense attorneys sharpen courtroom advocacy and protect the record for appeal.
Combating the "Rape Myth" Expert: Excluding & Diffusing Expert Testimony
When the prosecution uses a “rape myth” expert to sway the jury, do you know how to stop them—and turn their science against them?
This program, based on a real trial, gives defense attorneys a practical roadmap to challenge and exclude biased psychological testimony. You’ll get sample voir dire, motion language, Daubert strategies, and tips for exposing flawed methodology and narrowing testimony. Whether you're aiming to exclude the expert or limit their impact, this session equips you with the tools to protect your client and assert control in the courtroom.
Pattern Cross-Examination for Digital Forensic Experts
This guide provides ready-to-use cross-examination questions, categorized by artifact type and case theme—from cell phone towers to deleted texts to smart devices and cloud forensics. Whether you’re handling a case involving child exploitation, stalking, or online fraud, this book delivers practical patterns designed to highlight sloppy forensics, bias, tool limitations, and assumptions of intent or identity. Defense attorneys don’t need a computer science degree—they need strategy, control, and the right questions to challenge the illusion of digital certainty in court.
Using Chat GPT in Criminal Cases - Writing Better Prompts
Want a motion written in plain language but grounded in Tennessee case law? Need a summary of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence with primary and secondary citations? This is where you learn how to get that—on demand, and with far less editing. This training is designed specifically for attorneys—busy professionals who need fast, accurate, and case-relevant AI support. Whether you’re drafting motions, brainstorming legal strategy, summarizing complex case law, or preparing cross-examinations, the quality of your AI output comes down to one thing: how you ask for it.
Alcohol, Blackouts and Consent in Sex Cases
This comprehensive training program provides defense attorneys with a rigorous, science-backed approach to dismantling prosecutorial narratives, exposing unreliable testimony, and ensuring that juries are properly educated on the complexities of memory, intoxication, and consent. You'll explores critical mistakes and misconceptions encountered in these cases, including errors in memory reconstruction after an event, incorrect inferences, cognitive schemas, suggestibility, contamination and misinformation, mistakes of fact and more.
Overcoming the Presumption of Guilt and Defining Reasonable Doubt
Reasonable Doubt, what is it?
In order to win criminal cases, the defense practitioner must object to a reasonable doubt standard that lowers the burden of guilt. This program will discuss proven methods to argue and define reasonable doubt persuasively to a jury. You’ll learn how define reasonable doubt using metaphors and hypothetical scenarios that force juries to dispute the evidence, conflicts in the evidence, or even lack of evidence in your case.
The DIY of DNA: Exoneration Through DNA Evidence
This presentation might be the first time you’re truly able to truly grasp the fundamentals of DNA evidence. This critical presentation blends real-world storytelling with clear, practical instruction—making DNA evidence finally feel accessible, even to non-scientists—while inspiring attorneys to dig deeper, ask smarter questions, and approach forensic science with newfound confidence. You’ll learn how to identify and interpret electropherograms, understand autosomal vs. Y-STR testing, and recognize the limits of DNA evidence—particularly when it involves partial or mixed samples.
"Lobbyist In Abramoff Scandal Faces 46 to 57 Months In Prison The Blog of the Legal Times , September 20, 2011. [Read the Court's Sentencing Opinion ]
"Post-Skilling Government Approach – Depends on the Case White Collar Crime Prof Blog , August 21, 2011.
"Congress, DOJ Grapple With Revising Corruption Laws The BLT: The Blog of LegalTimes , July 26, 2011.
"John Edwards indicted on campaign finance charges The Washington Post , June 3, 2011. [Indictment and more coverage ]
"11th Circuit Tosses Out Part of Scrushy Conviction The Associated Press , May 11, 2011.
"Sixth Circuit Vacates Honest Services Wire Fraud and False Statement Convictions of Former Tennessee State Senator White Collar Crime Prof Blog , April 15, 2011. The 6th Circuit decision is available here
"U.S. appeals court upholds Jeff Skilling conviction Reuters , April 6, 2011. The 5th Circuit decision . For more analysis, see Prof. Ellen Podgor's "Commentary on Skilling Remand Decision Weyhrauch Mail Fraud Case Finally Dismissed White Collar Crime Prof Blog , March 15, 2011.Conrad Black Won't Be Retried on Honest Services Fraud Charges, U.S. Says Bloomberg , January 13, 2011.
"Criminal fraud cases survive Skilling decision The National Law Journal , January 3, 2011.
Pre-Skilling Press and Commentary
NACDL sponsored programs held leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court's oral argument and decision in Skilling v. United States , including press calls, served as valuable resources for the significant media attention to this important matter, coverage of which yielded hundreds of news stories in the news cycles during and following the arguments. For example, Bloomberg Business Week covered the Skilling case in a March 1, 2010, article, Skilling Seeks New Trial Without ‘Tar and Feathers,’ which cited to comments by NACDL Board Member Timothy P. O’Toole. O’Toole was also a panelist at the December 7, 2009, NACDL/Heritage co-sponsored event on Capitol Hill, and appeared on December 8, 2009, on American Public Media’s public radio program, “Marketplace ” on the subject of the Honest Services Fraud cases argued before the Supreme Court that day (“SC could scale back anti-corruption law ”). Barry Pollack, Co-Chair At Large of NACDL’s White Collar Crime Section, got the last word in Enron’s hometown coverage in the Houston Chronicle , Did Skilling Get a Fair Shake Here?
In a McClatchy story, appearing in papers from Seattle to Miami, NACDL’s White Collar Crime Policy Director Shana-Tara Regon pointedly explained that “The statute is 28 words, and no one knows what it means.” (“Piece of ex-Alaska Rep. Weyhrauch's case goes to Supreme Court ”) And NACDL member Bill Mateja penned an Op-ed in the Dallas Morning News , “Supreme Court should void 'honest services' ” in which he also discusses NACDL’s important coalition work: “To this end, Congress heard testimony last summer from strange bedfellows who have formed a coalition to bring ‘overcriminalization’ to lawmakers' attention, namely, the American Bar Association, American Civil Liberties Union, Cato Institute, Constitution Project, Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and Washington Legal Foundation.”
