Cite as: 504 U. S. 255 (1992)
Thomas, J., dissenting
B
Perhaps because the common-law crime—as the Court defines it—is so expansive, the Court, at the very end of its opinion, appends a qualification: "We hold today that the
bribe, the State introduced evidence that the defendant had received other bribes, some from gambling houses. He challenged the admission of the evidence of other crimes; the court rejected that challenge on evidentiary grounds. In passing, however, the court said: "It may be noted, however, that it may be that the defendant and [another alderman], in dealing with the gambling houses, were guilty of extortion under [the state statute]." Id., at 456, 231 N. W., at 228 (emphasis added). That is all. The Court's parenthetical claim that "dicta" in the opinion support the proposition that "alderman's acceptance of money for the erection of a barn, the running of a gambling house, and the opening of a filling station would constitute extortion" is, at best, a gross overstatement. Ante, at 270.
Fourth, the Court cites State v. Barts, 132 N. J. L. 74, 76, 83, 38 A. 2d 838, 841, 844 (1944), which upheld the extortion conviction of a police officer, based essentially on a bribery rationale. As the New Jersey Supreme Court has neatly explained, however, that case represented a departure from the traditional common law of extortion:
"Our extortion statute, which had its origin at least as early as 1796, appears on its face to have been originally intended to be reiterative of the common law. The essence of that offense was the receiving or taking by any public officer, by color of his office, of any fee or reward not allowed by law for performing his duties. The purpose would seem to be simply to penalize the officer who non-innocently insisted upon a larger fee than he was entitled to or a fee where none was permitted or required to be paid for the performance of an obligatory function of his office. The matter was obviously of particular importance in the days when public officials received their compensation through fees collected and not by fixed salary. Our early cases dealt with precisely this kind of a situation. [Citing, inter alia, Cutter v. State and Loftus v. State, see n. 3, supra].
"After a couple of opinions possibly indicating an extension to cover payments demanded for the favorable exercise of discretionary powers of the officer, an enlarged construction of the statute to its present day scope was announced in State v. Barts . . . . This present construction of the crime thus overlaps the offense of bribery since extortion is committed even where the object of the payment is in reality to influence an officer in his official behavior or conduct without such having to be established." State v. Begyn, 34 N. J. 35, 46-47, 167 A. 2d 161, 166-167 (1961) (emphasis added; citations omitted). If the Court wishes to adopt the "modern"
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