(Slip Opinion)
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` OCTOBER TERM, 2012
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`Syllabus
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`1
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` NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
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`
`
` being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
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`
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` The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
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` prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
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` See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
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`SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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` Syllabus
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` 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 recom-
`mended against investing in a fund managed by FA Technology Ven-
`tures, the general counsel received anonymous e-mails demanding
`that he recommend the investment and threatening, if he did not, to
`disclose information about the general 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 part-
`ner of FA Technology Ventures. Petitioner was convicted of attempt-
`ed 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 by wrongful use of actual or threat-
`
`ened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right,”
`§1951(b)(2). The jury specified that the property petitioner attempt-
`ed to extort was the general counsel’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 constitute “the obtaining of property
`from another” under the Hobbs Act. Pp. 3–9.
`
`(a) 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. 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 property requires “not only the depriva-
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`

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`2
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`SEKHAR v. UNITED STATES
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`
`Syllabus
`
`tion but also the acquisition 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, capable 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 the 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 the 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.
`SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS,
`
`
`C. J., and THOMAS, GINSBURG, BREYER, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. ALITO,
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`
`
`
`J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which KENNEDY and
`SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined.
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`

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` Cite as: 570 U. S. ____ (2013)
`
`Opinion of the Court
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`1
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` NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
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` preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
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` notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
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` ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order
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` that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
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`SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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`
`
`
`
`_________________
`
` 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]
`
`JUSTICE SCALIA 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
`
`
`
`

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`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 his 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
`
`
`
`
`
`2
`
`
`
`
`——————
`1Petitioner 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 interstate 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.
`
`
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`

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`3
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` 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 not only attempted to deprive
`the general counsel of his “property right,” but that peti-
`tioner also “attempted to exercise 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
`
`
`
`

`
`4
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` SEKHAR v. UNITED STATES
`
`Opinion of the Court
`the common law or other legislation, it brings the old soil
`
`with it.” Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47
`Colum. L. Rev. 527, 537 (1947).
`
`The Hobbs Act punishes “extortion,” one of the oldest
`
`crimes in our legal tradition, see E. Coke, The Third Part
`of the Institutes of the Laws of England 148–150 (1648)
`(reprint 2008). The crime originally applied only to extor-
`tionate action by public officials, but was later extended
`
`by statute to private extortion. See 4 C. Torcia, Wharton’s
`Criminal Law §§695, 699 (14th ed. 1981). 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 obtaining of
`items of value, typically cash, from the victim. See, e.g.,
`People v. Whaley, 6 Cow. 661 (N. Y. Sup. Ct. 1827) (justice
`of the peace properly indicted for extorting money); Com-
`monwealth v. Bagley, 24 Mass. 279 (1828) (officer properly
`convicted for demanding a fee for letting a man out of
`
`prison); Commonwealth v. Mitchell, 66 Ky. 25 (1867)
`(jailer properly indicted for extorting money from pris-
`oner); Queen v. Woodward, 11 Mod. 137, 88 Eng. Rep. 949
`(K. B. 1707) (upholding indictment for extorting “money
`and a note”). It did not cover mere coercion to act, or to
`refrain from acting. See, e.g., King v. Burdett, 1 Ld. Raym.
`149, 91 Eng. Rep. 996 (K. B. 1696) (dictum) (extortion
`consisted of the “taking of money for the use of the stalls,”
`not the deprivation of “free liberty to sell [one’s] wares in
`the market according to law”).
`
`The text of the statute at issue confirms that the
`
`alleged property here cannot be extorted. Enacted in 1946,
`the Hobbs Act defines its crime of “extortion” as “the ob-
`
`taining 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.” 18 U. S. C.
`§1951(b)(2) (emphasis added). Obtaining property re-
`quires “not only the deprivation but also the acquisition of
`
`
`
`
`
`

`
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`
`5
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`Cite as: 570 U. S. ____ (2013)
`
`Opinion of the Court
`
` property.” Scheidler v. National Organization for Women,
`
` Inc., 537 U. S. 393, 404 (2003) (citing United States v.
`
`Enmons, 410 U. S. 396, 400 (1973)). That is, it requires
`that the victim “part with” his property, R. Perkins & R.
`Boyce, Criminal Law 451 (3d ed. 1982), and that the extor-
`tionist “gain possession” of it, Scheidler, supra, at 403,
`n. 8; see also Webster’s New International Dictionary 1682
`(2d ed. 1949) (defining “obtain”); Murray, Note, Protesters,
`Extortion, and Coercion: Preventing RICO from Chilling
`First Amendment Freedoms, 75 Notre Dame L. Rev. 691,
`706 (1999) (Murray). The property extorted must there-
`fore be transferable—that is, capable of passing from one
`person to another. The alleged property here lacks that
`
`defining feature.2
`
`The genesis of the Hobbs Act reinforces that conclusion.
`The Act was modeled after §850 of the New York Penal
`Law (1909), which was derived from the famous Field
`Code, a 19th-century model penal code, see 4 Commission-
`ers of the Code, Penal Code of the State of New York §613,
`p. 220 (1865) (reprint 1998). Congress borrowed, nearly
`verbatim, the New York statute’s definition of extortion.
`See Scheidler, 537 U. S., at 403. The New York statute
`contained, in addition to the felony crime of extortion, a
`new (that is to say, nonexistent at common law) misde-
`meanor crime of coercion. Whereas the former required,
`
`as we have said, “‘the criminal acquisition of . . . property,’”
`ibid., the latter required merely the use of threats “to
`——————
`2It may well be proper under the Hobbs Act for the Government to
`charge a person who obtains money by threatening a third party, who
`
`obtains funds belonging to a corporate or governmental entity by
`
`threatening the entity’s agent, see 2 J. Bishop, Criminal Law §408, p.
`
`
`
`
`334, and n. 3 (9th ed. 1923) (citing State v. Moore, 1 Ind. 548 (1849)), or
`who obtains “goodwill and customer revenues” by threatening a market
`
`
`competitor, see, e.g., United States v. Zemek, 634 F. 2d 1159, 1173 (CA9
`
`
`1980). Each of these might be considered “obtaining property from
`another.” We need not consider those situations, however, because the
`
`Government did not charge any of them here.
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
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`
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`
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`

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`SEKHAR v. UNITED STATES
`
`Opinion of the Court
`compel another person to do or to abstain from doing an
`act which such other such person has a legal right to do
`or to abstain from doing.” N. Y. Penal Law §530 (1909),
`earlier codified in N. Y. Penal Code §653 (1881). Congress
`did not copy the coercion provision. The omission must
`have been deliberate, since it was perfectly clear that
`extortion did not include coercion. At the time of the
`borrowing (1946), New York courts had consistently held
`that the sort of interference with rights that occurred here
`
`was coercion. See, e.g., People v. Ginsberg, 262 N. Y. 556,
`188 N. E. 62 (1933) (per curiam) (compelling store owner
`to become a member of a trade association and to remove
`advertisements); People v. Scotti, 266 N. Y. 480, 195 N. E.
`162 (App. Div. 1934) (compelling victim to enter into
`agreement with union); People v. Kaplan, 240 App. Div.
`72, 74–75, 269 N. Y. S. 161, 163–164, aff ’d, 264 N. Y. 675,
`191 N. E. 621 (1934) (compelling union members to drop
`lawsuits against union leadership).3
`
`
`
`
`6
`
`
`
`
`
`
`——————
`3Also revealing, the New York code prohibited conspiracy “[t]o pre-
`vent another from exercising a lawful trade or calling, or doing any
`
`other lawful act, by force, threats, intimidation.” N. Y. Penal Law
`
`§580(5) (1909) (emphasis added). That separate codification, which Con-
`gress did not adopt, is further evidence that the New York crime of
`extortion (and hence the federal crime) did not reach interference with
`a person’s right to ply a lawful trade, similar to the right claimed here.
`
`
`Seeking to extract something from the void, the Government relies
`
`
`
`on cases that interpret a provision of the New York code defining
`the kinds of threats that qualify as threats to do “unlawful injury to the
`person or property,” which is what the extortion statute requires. See
`
`N. Y. Penal Code §553 (1881); N. Y. Penal Law §851 (1909). Those
`cases held that they include threats to injure a business by preventing
`the return of workers from a strike, People v. Barondess, 133 N. Y. 649,
`31 N. E. 240, 241–242 (1892) (per curiam), and threats to terminate a
`
`person’s employment, People ex rel. Short v. Warden, 145 App. Div. 861,
`
`
`130 N. Y. S. 698, 700–701 (1911), aff’d, 206 N. Y. 632, 99 N. E. 1116
`(1912) (per curiam). Those cases are entirely inapposite here, where
`
`the issue is not what constitutes a qualifying threat but what consti-
`
`
`tutes obtainable property.
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`

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`7
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`Cite as: 570 U. S. ____ (2013)
`
`Opinion of the Court
`And finally, this Court’s own precedent similarly de-
`
`mands reversal of petitioner’s convictions. In Scheidler,
`we held that protesters did not commit extortion under the
`Hobbs Act, even though they “interfered with, disrupted,
`
`and in some instances completely deprived” abortion
`clinics of their ability to run their business. 537 U. S., at
`404–405. We reasoned that the protesters may have
`deprived the clinics of an “alleged property right,” but they
`
`did not pursue or receive “‘something of value from’” the
`clinics that they could then “exercise, transfer, or sell”
`
`themselves. Id., at 405. The opinion supported its holding
`
`by citing the three New York coercion cases discussed
`above. See id., at 405–406.
`
`This case is easier than Scheidler, where one might at
`least have said that physical occupation of property
`amounted to obtaining that property. The deprivation
`alleged here is far more abstract. Scheidler rested its
`decision, as we do, on the term “obtaining.” Id., at 402,
`n. 6. The principle announced there—that a defendant
`must pursue something of value from the victim that can
`be exercised, transferred, or sold—applies with equal force
`here.4 Whether one considers the personal right at issue
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`——————
` 4The Government’s attempt to distinguish Scheidler is unconvinc-
`
`ing. In its view, had the protesters sought to force the clinics to pro-
`vide services other than abortion, extortion would have been a proper
`charge. Petitioner committed extortion here, the Government says,
`because he did not merely attempt to prevent the general counsel from
`
`giving a recommendation but tried instead to force him to issue one.
`
`That distinction is, not to put too fine a point on it, nonsensical. It is
`
`coercion, not extortion, when a person is forced to do something and
`
`
`
`when he is forced to do nothing. See, e.g., N. Y. Penal Law §530 (1909)
`
`(it is a misdemeanor to coerce a “person to do or to abstain from doing
`an act”). Congress’s enactment of the Hobbs Act did not, through the
`phrase “obtaining of property from another,” suddenly transform every
`act that coerces affirmative conduct into a crime punishable for up to 20
`
`years, while leaving those who “merely” coerce inaction immune from
`federal punishment.
`
`

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`SEKHAR v. UNITED STATES
`
`Opinion of the Court
` to be “property” in a broad sense or not, it certainly was
`
` not obtainable property under the Hobbs Act.5
`B
`The Government’s shifting and imprecise characteriza-
`
`tion of the alleged property at issue betrays the weakness
`of its case. According to the jury’s verdict form, the “prop-
`
`erty” that petitioner attempted to extort was “the General
`
`Counsel’s recommendation to approve the Commitment.”
`
`App. 142. But the Government expends minuscule effort
`in defending that theory of conviction. And for good
`reason—to wit, our decision in Cleveland v. United States,
`531 U. S. 12 (2000), which reversed a business owner’s
`mail-fraud conviction for “obtaining money or property”
`through misrepresentations made in an application for a
`video-poker license issued by the State. We held that
`a “license” is not “property” while in the State’s hands and
`so cannot be “obtained” from the State. Id., at 20–22.
`
`Even less so can an employee’s yet-to-be-issued recom-
`mendation be called obtainable property, and less so still
`a yet-to-be-issued recommendation that would merely ap-
`prove (but not effect) a particular investment.
`Hence the Government’s reliance on an alternative,
`
`more sophisticated (and sophistic) description of the
`property. Instead of defending the jury’s description, the Gov-
`ernment hinges its case on the general counsel’s “intangi-
`ble property right to give his disinterested legal opinion to
`——————
`5The concurrence contends that the “right to make [a] recommenda-
` tion” is not property. Post, at 4 (ALITO, J., concurring in judgment). We
`
`
`are not sure of that. If one defines property to include anything of
`value, surely some rights to make recommendations would qualify—for
`example, a member of the Pulitzer Prize Committee’s right to recom-
`mend the recipient of the prize. We suppose that a prominent journal-
`
` ist would not give up that right (he cannot, of course, transfer it) for a
` significant sum of money—so it must be valuable. But the point
`
`relevant to the present case is that it cannot be transferred, so it cannot
`be the object of extortion under the statute.
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`8
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`

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` Cite as: 570 U. S. ____ (2013)
`
`Opinion of the Court
`his client free of improper outside interference.” Brief for
`
`United States 39. But what, exactly, would the petitioner
`have obtained for himself? A right to give his own disin-
`
`terested legal opinion to his own client free of improper
`interference? Or perhaps, a right to give the general coun-
`
`sel’s disinterested legal opinion to the general counsel’s
`client?
`
`Either formulation sounds absurd, because it is. Clearly,
`petitioner’s goal was not to acquire the general coun-
`sel’s “intangible property right to give disinterested legal
`advice.” It was to force the general counsel to offer advice
`that accorded with petitioner’s wishes. But again, that is
`coercion, not extortion. See Murray 721–722. No fluent
`speaker of English would say that “petitioner obtained
`and exercised the general counsel’s right to make a rec-
`ommendation,” any more than he would say that a person
`
`“obtained and exercised another’s right to free speech.” He
`would say that “petitioner forced the general counsel to
`make a particular recommendation,” just as he would
`
`say that a person “forced another to make a statement.”
`Adopting the Government’s theory here would not only
`make nonsense of words; it would collapse the longstand-
`
`ing distinction between extortion and coercion and ignore
`Congress’s choice to penalize one but not the other. See
`Scheidler, supra, at 409. That we cannot do.
`
`The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Second
`Circuit is reversed.
`
`
`
`It is so ordered.
`
`9
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`
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`

`
` Cite as: 570 U. S. ____ (2013)
`
` ALITO, J., concurring in judgment
`
`
`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]
`
`JUSTICE ALITO, with whom JUSTICE KENNEDY and JUS-
`
`
`
`TICE SOTOMAYOR join, concurring in the judgment.
`The question that we must decide in this case is whether
`
`
`
`
`“the General Counsel’s recommendation to approve the
`Commitment,” App. 142—or his right to make that rec-
`ommendation—is property that is capable of being ex-
`torted under the Hobbs Act, 18 U. S. C. §1951. In my view,
`
`they are not.
`
`I
`The jury in this case returned a special verdict form
`
`and stated that the property that petitioner attempted
`to extort was “the General Counsel’s recommendation to
`approve the Commitment.” What the jury obviously
`meant by this was the general counsel’s internal sugges-
`tion to his superior that the state government issue a
`nonbinding commitment to invest in a fund managed by
`FA Technology Ventures. We must therefore decide
`
`whether this nonbinding internal recommendation by a
`salaried state employee constitutes “property” within the
`meaning of the Hobbs Act, which defines “extortion” as
`“the obtaining of property from another, with his con-
`sent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened
`force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.”
`§1951(b)(2).
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`1
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`

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`
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` SEKHAR v. UNITED STATES
`
` ALITO, J., concurring in judgment
`
`
`The Hobbs Act does not define the term “property,” but
`
`even at common law the offense of extortion was under-
`stood to include the obtaining of any thing of value. 2 E.
`Coke, The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of
`England 368b (18th English ed. 1823) (“Extortion . . . is a
`great misprison, by wresting or unlawfully taking by any
`officer, by colour of his office, any money or valuable thing
`of or from any man”); 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries
`*141 (extortion is “an abuse of public, justice which con-
`
`sists in any officer’s unlawfully taking, by colour of his
`office, from any man, any money or thing of value”). See
`also 2 J. Bishop, Criminal Law §401, pp. 331–332 (9th ed.
`1923) (“In most cases, the thing obtained is money. . . . But
`probably anything of value will suffice”); 3 F. Wharton, A
`Treatise on Criminal Law §1898, p. 2095 (11th ed. 1912)
`(“[I]t is enough if any valuable thing is received”).
`
`At the time Congress enacted the Hobbs Act, the con-
`temporary edition of Black’s Law Dictionary included an
`expansive definition of the term. See Black’s Law Diction-
`ary 1446 (3d ed. 1933). It stated that “[t]he term is said to
`
`extend to every species of valuable right and interest. . . .
`The word is also commonly used to denote everything
`which is the subject of ownership, corporeal or incorporeal,
`tangible or intangible, visible or invisible, real or personal;
`everything that has an exchangeable value or which goes
`
`to make up wealth or estate.” Id., at 1446–1447. And the
`lower courts have long given the term a similarly expan-
`sive construction. See, e.g., United States v. Tropiano,
`
`418 F. 2d 1069, 1075 (CA2 1969) (“The concept of prop-
`erty under the Hobbs Act . . . includes, in a broad sense,
`any valuable right considered as a source or element of
`
`wealth”).
`
`
`Despite the breadth of some of these formulations,
`
`however, the term “property” plainly does not reach every-
`
`thing that a person may hold dear; nor does it extend to
`everything that might in some indirect way portend the
`
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`2
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`

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` Cite as: 570 U. S. ____ (2013)
`
` ALITO, J., concurring in judgment
`
`
`possibility of future economic gain. I do not suggest that
`the current lower court case law 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 refer to an internal recommenda-
`tion to make a government decision 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 decisions 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
`
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`3
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`4
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`
`SEKHAR v. UNITED STATES
`
`
` ALITO, J., concurring in judgment
`
`
`
` would be beneficial to private parties.
` The Government has not cited any Hobbs Act case
`
`
`holding that an internal recommendation 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 not 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 consider whether a Hobbs Act conviction
`
`could have been sustained on a different legal theory.
`
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`

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`5
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` Cite as: 570 U. S. ____ (2013)
`
` ALITO, 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 inextricably related to the general
`counsel’s position with the government, and not to his
`broader personal right to pursue 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 find, that petitioner attempted
`to obtain those things. Nor would such a theory make
`sense in the context of this case. 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 ow