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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES  SEKHAR v . UNITED STATES
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES SEKHAR v . UNITED STATES
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
SEKHAR
v . UNITED STATES
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE SECOND CIRCUIT
No. 12–357. Argued April 23, 2013—Decided June 26, 2013
Investments for the employee pension fund of the State of New York
and its local governments are chosen by the fund's sole trustee, the
State Comptroller.
After the Comptroller's general counsel recommended against investing in a fund managed by FA Technology Ventures, the general counsel receiv
ed anonymous e-mails demanding
that he recommend the investment an
d threatening, if he did not, to
disclose information about the genera
l counsel's alleged affair to his
wife, government officials, and the media. Some of the e-mails were traced to the home computer of petitioner Sekhar, a managing partner of FA Technology Ventures.
Pe titioner was convicted of attempted extortion, in violation of the Hobbs Act, 18 U. S. C. §1951(a), which defines “extortion” to mean “the obtaining of property from an
other, with his consent, induced bywrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right,”
§1951(b)(2).
The jury specified that the property petitioner attempted to extort was the general couns el's recommendation to approve the investment.
The Second Circuit affirmed.
Held:
Attempting to compel a person to recommend that his employer
approve an investment does not cons
titute “the obtaining of property
from another” under the Hobbs Act. Pp. 3–9.
(a)
Absent other indication, “Con
gress intends to incorporate the
well-settled meaning of the common-law terms it uses.”
Neder
v.
United States
, 527 U. S. 1, 23. As far as is known, no case predating
the Hobbs Act—English, federal,
or state—ever identified conduct
such as that charged here as extortionate.
Extortion required the ob
-
taining of items of value, typically
cash, from the victim. The Act's
text confirms that obtaining proper
ty requires “not
only the depriva
-
2
SEKHAR
v.
UNITED STATES
Syllabus
tion but also the acquis
ition of property.”
Scheidler
v.
National Or
-
ganization for Women, Inc.
, 537 U. S. 393, 404.
The property extort
-
ed must therefore be
transferable—that is, cap
able of passing from
one person to another, a defining feature lacking in the alleged prop
-
erty here. The genesis of the Hobbs
Act reinforces that conclusion.
Congress borrowed nearly verbatim th
e definition of extortion from a
1909 New York statute but did not copy
the coercion provision of that
statute. And in 1946, the time
of the borrowing, New York courts
had consistently held that the sort of
interference
with rights that oc
-
curred here was coercion. Finally
, this Court's own precedent de
-
mands reversal of petitioner's convictions. See
id.,
at 404–405.
Pp. 3–8.
(b)
The Government's defense of th
e theory of conviction is unper
-
suasive. No fluent speaker of
English would say that “petitioner
ob
-
tained and exercised
the general counsel's right to make a recom
-
mendation,” any more than he would say that a person “
obtained and
exercised
another's right to free speech.”
He would say that “petition
-
er
forced
the general counsel to make a particular recommendation,”
just as he would say that a person “
forced
another to make a state
-
ment.” Adopting the Government's
theory here would not only make
nonsense of words; it would collapse the longstanding distinction be
-
tween extortion and coercion and ignore Congress's choice to penalize
one but not the other. See
Scheidler
,
supra,
at 409. Pp. 8–9.
683 F. 3d 436, reversed.
S
CALIA
,
J., delivered the opinion of
the Court, in which R
OBERTS
,
C.
J., and T
HOMAS
, G
INSBURG
, B
REYER
,
and K
AGAN
,
JJ., joined.
A
LITO
,
J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which K
ENNEDY
and
S
OTOMAYOR
,
JJ., joined.
_________________
_________________
1
Cite as: 570 U. S. ____ (2013)
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash
-
ington, D. C. 20543,
of any typographical or other formal errors, in order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 12–357
GIRIDHAR C. SEKHAR, PETITIONER
v.
UNITED STATES
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
[June 26, 2013]
J
USTICE
S
CALIA
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We consider whether attempting to compel a person to
recommend that his employer approve an investment con
-
stitutes “the obtaining of property from another” under
18 U. S. C. §1951(b)(2).
I
New York's Common Retirement Fund is an employee
pension fund for the State of New York and its local gov
-
ernments. As sole trustee of the Fund, the State Comp
-
troller chooses Fund investments. When the Comptroller
decides to approve an investment he issues a “Commit
-
ment.” A Commitment, however, does not actually bind
the Fund. For that to happen, the Fund and the recipient
of the investment must enter into a limited partnership
agreement. 683 F. 3d 436, 438 (CA2 2012).
Petitioner Giridhar Sekhar was a managing partner of
FA Technology Ventures. In October 2009, the Comptrol
-
ler's office was considering whether to invest in a fund
managed by that firm. The office's general counsel made a
written recommendation to the Comptroller not to invest
in the fund, after learning that the Office of the New York
2
SEKHAR
v.
UNITED STATES
Opinion of the Court
Attorney General was investigating another fund man
-
aged by the firm. The Comptroller decided not to issue a
Commitment and notified a partner of FA Technology
Ventures. That partner had previously heard rumors that
the general counsel was having an extramarital affair.
The general counsel then received a series of anony-
mous e-mails demanding that
he recommend moving for
-
ward with the investment and threatening, if he did not,
to disclose information about hi
s alleged affair to his wife,
government officials, and the media. App. 59–61. The
general counsel contacted law enforcement, which traced
some of the e-mails to petitioner's home computer and
other e-mails to offices of
FA Technology Ventures.
Petitioner was indicted for, and a jury convicted him of,
attempted extortion, in violation of the Hobbs Act, 18
U.
S. C. §1951(a). That Act subjects a person to criminal
liability if he “in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or
affects commerce or the movement of any article or com
-
modity in commerce, by robbery
or extortion or attempts
or conspires so to do.” §1951(a). The Act defines “extor
-
tion” to mean “the obtaining of property from another,
with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or
threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official
right.” §1951(b)(2).
1
On the verdict form, the jury was
asked to specify the property
that petitioner attempted to
extort: (1) “the Commitment”; (2) “the Comptroller's ap
-
proval of the Commitment”; or (3) “the General Counsel's
——————
1
Petitioner was also convicted of several counts of interstate trans
-
mission of extortionate threats, in violation of 18 U. S. C. §875(d).
Under §875(d), a person is criminally liable if he, “with intent to extort
from any person, firm, association,
or corporation, any money or other
thing of value, transmits in inters
tate or foreign commerce any com
-
munication containing any threat to
injure the property or reputation
of the addressee.” In this case, both
parties concede that the definition
of “extortion” under the Hobbs Act also applies to the §875(d) counts.
We express no opinion on the
validity of that concession.
3
Cite as: 570 U. S. ____ (2013)
Opinion of the Court
recommendation to approve the Commitment.” App. 141–
142.
The jury chose only the third option.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed
the conviction. The court held that the general counsel
“had a property right in rendering sound legal advice to
the Comptroller and, specifically, to recommend—free from
threats—whether the Comptroller should issue a Com
-
mitment for [the funds].” 683 F. 3d, at 441. The court
concluded that petitioner no
t only attempted to deprive
the general counsel of his “pro
perty right,” but that peti
-
tioner also “attempted to exerci
se that right by forcing the
General Counsel to make a recommendation determined
by [petitioner].”
Id.,
at 442.
We granted certiorari. 568 U. S. ___ (2013).
II
A
Whether viewed from the standpoint of the common
law, the text and genesis of the statute at issue here, or
the jurisprudence of this Court's prior cases, what was
charged in this case was not extortion.
It is a settled principle of interpretation that, absent
other indication, “Congress intends to incorporate the
well-settled meaning of the common-law terms it uses.”
Neder
v.
United States
, 527 U. S. 1, 23 (1999).
“[W]here Congress borrows terms of art in which are
accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of cen
-
turies of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the
cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed
word in the body of learning from which it was taken
and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial
mind unless otherwise instructed.”
Morissette
v.
United States,
342 U. S. 246, 263 (1952).
Or as Justice Frankfurter colorfully put it, “if a word is
obviously transplanted from another legal source, whether
3
Cite as: 570 U. S. ____ (2013)
A
LITO
,
J., concurring in judgment
possibility of future economic gain. I do not suggest that
the current lower court case la
w is necessarily correct, but
it seems clear that the case now before us is an outlier and
that the jury's verdict stretches the concept of property
beyond the breaking point.
It is not customary to refe
r to an internal recommenda
-
tion to make a government deci
sion as a form of property.
It would seem strange to say that the government or its
employees have a property interest in their internal rec
-
ommendations regarding such things as the issuance of
a building permit, the content of an environmental impact
statement, the approval of
a new drug, or the indictment
of an individual or a corporation. And it would be even
stranger to say that a private party who might be affected
by the government's decision
can obtain a property inter
-
est in a recommendation to make the decision. See,
e.g.,
Doyle
v.
University of Alabama
, 680 F. 2d 1323, 1326
(CA11 1982) (“Doyle had no protected property interest
in the mere recommendation for a raise; thus she was not
entitled to due process safeguards when the recommended
raise was disapproved by the University”).
Our decision in
Cleveland
v.
United States
, 531 U. S. 12
(2000), supports the conclusion that internal recommenda
-
tions regarding government deci
sions are not property. In
Cleveland
, we vacated a business owner's conviction under
the federal mail fraud statute, 18 U. S. C. §1341, for “ob
-
taining money or property” through misrepresentations
made in an application for a video poker license issued by
the State. We held that a video poker license is not prop
-
erty in the hands of the State.
Cleveland
,
supra
, at 15. I
do not suggest that the concepts of property under the
mail fraud statute and the Hobbs Act are necessarily the
same. But surely a video poker license has a stronger
claim to be classified as property than a mere internal
recommendation that a state government take an initial
step that might lead eventually to an investment that
4
SEKHAR
v.
UNITED STATES
A
LITO
,
J., concurring in judgment
would be beneficial to private parties.
The Government has not cited any Hobbs Act case
holding that an internal reco
mmendation regarding a gov
-
ernment decision constitutes property. Nor has the Gov
-
ernment cited any other example of the use of the term
“property” in this sense.*
The Second Circuit recharacterized the property that
petitioner attempted to obtain as the general counsel's
“right to make a recommendation
consistent with his legal
judgment.” 683 F. 3d 436, 442 (2012). And the Govern
-
ment also presses that theory in this Court. Brief for
United States 15, 34–45. According to the Government,
the general counsel's property interest in his recommenda
-
tion encompasses the right to make the recommendation.
Id.,
at 35–36. But this argument assumes that the rec
-
ommendation itself is property. See
id.,
at 35 (the general
counsel's “
‘recommendation' and his ‘right to make the
recommendation' are merely different expressions of the
same property”). If an internal recommendation regarding
a government decision does no
t constitute property, then
surely a government employee's right to make such a
recommendation is not property either (nor could it be
deemed a
property
right).
II
The Government argues that the recommendation was
the general counsel's
personal
property because it was
——————
*
To
recognize that an internal recommendation regarding a govern
-
ment decision is not property does not foreclose the possibility that
threatening a government employee,
as the government's agent, in
order to secure government property could qualify as Hobbs Act extor
-
tion. Here, after all, petitioner's ultimate goal was to secure an invest
-
ment of money from the government. But the jury found only that
petitioner had attempted to obtain the general counsel's recommenda
-
tion, so I have no occasion to cons
ider whether a Hobbs Act conviction
could have been sustained on a different legal theory.
5
Cite as: 570 U. S. ____ (2013)
A
LITO
,
J., concurring in judgment
inextricably related to his right
to pursue his profession as
an attorney. See
id.
, at 34–35. But that argument is
clearly wrong: If the general counsel had left the State's
employ before submitting the recommendation, he could
not have taken the recommendation with him, and he
certainly could not have given it or sold it to someone else.
Therefore, it is obvious that the recommendation (and the
right to make it) were inextri
cably related to the general
counsel's position with the government, and not to his
broader personal right to pu
rsue the practice of law.
The general counsel's job surely had economic value to
him, as did his labor as a lawyer, his law license, and his
reputation as an attorney. But the indictment did not
allege, and the jury did not fi
nd, that petitioner attempted
to obtain those things. Nor would such a theory make
sense in the context of this ca
se. Petitioner did not, for
example, seek the general counsel's legal advice or de
-
mand that the general counsel represent him in a legal
proceeding. Cf.
United States
v.
Thompson
, 647 F. 3d 180,
186–187 (CA5 2011) (a person's labor is property capable
of being extorted). Nor did
petitioner attempt to enhance
his own ability to compete with the general counsel for
legal work by threatening to do
something that would, say,
tarnish the general counsel's reputation or cause his law
license to be revoked. Cf.
Tropiano
, 418 F. 2d, at 1071–
1072, 1075–1077 (threats to competitor in order to obtain
customers constitute extortion);
United States
v.
Zemek
,
634 F. 2d 1159, 1173–1174 (CA9 1980) (same);
United
States
v.
Coffey
, 361 F. Supp. 2d 102, 108–109 (EDNY
2005) (the right to pursue a lawful business is extortable
property under the Hobbs Act).
The Court holds that peti
tioner's conduct does not
amount to attempted extortion,
but for a different reason:
According to the Court, the alleged property that petition
-
er pursued was not transferrable and therefore is not
capable of being “obtained.”
Ante,
at 4–5, 7–8. Because I
6
SEKHAR
v.
UNITED STATES
A
LITO
,
J., concurring in judgment
do not believe that the item in question constitutes prop
-
erty, it is unnecessary for me
to determine whether or not
petitioner sought to obtain it.
* * *
If Congress had wanted to classify internal recommen
-
dations pertaining to governme
nt decisions as property,
I think it would have spoken more clearly than it did in
the Hobbs Act. But even if the Hobbs Act were ambiguous
on this point, the rule of lenity would counsel in favor of an
interpretation of the statute th
at does not reach so broadly,
see
Scheidler
v.
National Organization for Women, Inc.
,
537 U. S. 393, 409 (2003). This is not to say that the
Government could not have pros
ecuted petitioner for ex
-
tortion on these same facts under some other theory.
The question before us is whether the general counsel's
recommendation—or the right to make it—constitutes
property under the Hobbs Act. In my view, they do not.
For these reasons, I concur in the Court's judgment.
Avv. Antonino Sugamele

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