Laura Jordan and Mark Jordan v. United States
I.
Whether an appellate court's harmless-error analysis of
constitutional alternative theory error in jury instructions must decline to find the error harmless when (1) the
defendant at trial contested the legally valid theory of
guilt and (2) the evidence at trial, when viewed in a light most favorable to the defendant, allowed a rational jury
to acquit the defendant of the valid theory but convict him
of the invalid theory.
II.
Whether, for the reasons stated in Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion in Neder v. United States , 527 U.S. 1
(1999), this Court should overrule Neder and treat jury
instructions that contain alternative theory error as structural error.
III.
Whether applying 18 U.S.C. § 666(a) to proscribe corrupt conduct by a state or local governmental official is a permissible exercise of Congress's authority under the
Spending Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause
when the evidence at trial did not prove that the corrupt conduct caused or was intended to cause the state or local
government to spend any funds and, thus, necessarily did
not put any federal funding provided to the state or local
government agency at risk.
Whether an appellate court's harmless-error analysis must decline to find constitutional alternative theory error harmless