Can Robert Menendez’s Bribery Conviction Survive an Appeal?

After Senator Robert Menendez was found guilty of bribery and corruption charges, his lawyers said they would appeal his conviction aggressively and expected that he would be vindicated.

Defense lawyers make such claims routinely, but in the realm of federal corruption cases, there has been some reason to be optimistic. The U.S. Supreme Court, in rulings since 2010, has narrowed the legal definition of corruption, resulting in a number of convictions of political figures in New York and elsewhere being overturned.

“We have seen the capacity of appeals courts to surprise us all,” said Martin S. Bell, a former Southern District corruption prosecutor. “If Yogi Berra were to be heard on this, he’d probably say, it ain’t really over until the appeals court sings.”

Still, Mr. Bell and other legal experts said, prosecutors are learning to work within the new rules in ways that may withstand scrutiny from potentially skeptical higher courts.

For example, after the corruption convictions of two of New York’s once powerful political figures — Sheldon Silver, a Democratic speaker of the State Assembly, and Dean G. Skelos, a Republican leader of the State Senate — were overturned in 2017 on appeal in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court ruling the year before, both men were retried, convicted and sentenced to prison.

At Mr. Menendez’s trial, prosecutors presented evidence of a brazen plot in which, they said, the senator and his wife accepted bribes of gold bullion, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for his agreeing to do political favors at home and abroad. As part of the scheme, prosecutors said, Mr. Menendez steered weapons and aid to Egypt.