In class, students learn about bribery of public officials and its criminal penalties. Bribery can also be an ethics violation. Generally, public officials are prohibited from accepting gifts in relation to their official duties. Both federal and state governments have fashioned rules regarding acceptance of gifts and these rules can extend to family members.
In Section III of the New Jersey Uniform Ethics Code, for example, it states that no state officer or employee “shall accept any gift, favor, service or other thing of value related in any way to the State official’s public duties.” The same holds true for federal judges. Under the Regulations of the Judicial Conference of the United States under Title III of the Ethics Reform Act of 1989 Concerning Gifts, judges “shall not accept a gift from anyone who is seeking official action from or doing business with the court . . . .”
But there are exceptions to the rules and each one has to be carefully construed. Some, like the New Jersey Uniform Ethics Code, will permit certain “gifts or benefits of trivial or nominal value” as long as the gift “does not create an impression of a conflict of interest or a violation of the public trust.” Other codes may provide a dollar-limit. For example, the “Regulations” for federal judges above provide that gifts having “an aggregate market value of $50 or less per occasion” are permitted “provided that the aggregate market value of individual gifts accepted from any one person . . . shall not exceed $100 in a calendar year.”
Common sense is the foundation of these rules. If the gift has the appearance of impropriety, it is better to graciously decline it.