Alaska Politics Blog : Weyhrauch case to be heard in front of Supreme Court

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Erika Bolstad

Erika Bolstad covers Alaska issues, including the congressional delegation, from Washington, D.C., for McClatchy Newspapers. Before joining the bureau in 2007, she spent seven years as a reporter at the Miami Herald, where she covered politics, government and the state legislature. E-mail Erika at ebolstad@adn.com.

Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham writes about Alaska state politics. He's worked for the ADN in Anchorage and Juneau, covered the legislature for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and covered Washington state politics for the Tacoma News Tribune. E-mail Sean at scockerham@adn.com

Kyle Hopkins

Kyle Hopkins covers rural affairs, general assignments and politics for the ADN. He covered the 2006 campaign for governor, has blogged extensively about Alaska politics, covered Anchorage city government and was a reporter based in the Mat-Su. He grew up in Southeast Alaska and previously wrote for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and Anchorage Press. E-mail Kyle at khopkins@adn.com and also find him on our rural Alaska blog, The Village.

David Hulen

David Hulen, the ADN's state and local news editor, is responsible for political coverage. He has been an editor and reporter at the ADN for more than 20 years. E-mail David at dhulen@adn.com

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Weyhrauch case to be heard in front of Supreme Court

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Posted: June 29, 2009 - 9:26 am

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From Erika Bolstad in Washington D.C. --

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review part of former Alaska Rep. Bruce Weyhrauch’s pending criminal case.

The court will look at one specific area: whether prosecutors must prove Weyhrauch violated a state disclosure law to convict him on federal mail-fraud statutes.

Weyhrauch, awaiting trial on federal corruption charges, has asked the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision that directly applied the federal mail-fraud statute to his case. At issue is one count in Weyhrauch’s 2007 indictment. It charged him with violating the federal mail fraud statute by depriving Alaskans of his honest services when he served as a legislator in 2006.

According to the charges, Weyhrauch, a Juneau Republican, solicited legal work from the oil-field service company Veco Corp. at a time when Veco was pushing hard to win support for lower oil taxes in the Legislature.

Prosecutors said Weyhrauch never disclosed his conflict of interest. Weyhrauch said he didn't have to because state law didn't specifically require such disclosure.
A trial court in Anchorage agreed with Weyhrauch, but prosecutors appealed just before the start of his trial.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with prosecutors, saying legislators had a duty to disclose such conflicts. The court reasoned that even if a state has weak ethics laws, it was no reason for its citizens to be deprived of the honest services of their public officials.

Weyhrauch acknowledged that two other circuit courts had made similar rulings, but said that another two had a different standard: They required a state law violation before the mail fraud statute could be used in a criminal case.

Weyhrauch asked the Supreme Court to clear up the "confusion" between the different circuits -- which the court agreed to today. It’s unclear when his case will be heard.