United States v. Jefferson

T.S. Ellis, III, United States District Judge

In 2007, William Jennings Jefferson, a nine-term Congressman from Louisiana, was indicted, tried, and convicted by a jury of bribery, honest services wire fraud, money laundering, racketeering, and conspiracy to commit those crimes. Jefferson unsuccessfully appealed his sentence to the Fourth Circuit and the Supreme Court; his convictions and sentences were affirmed by both. Then, in 2016, the Supreme Court in United States v. McDonnell , --- U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 2355, 195 L.Ed.2d 639 (2016), altered the legal landscape with respect to the…