NCJ Number
90573
Journal
University of Cincinnati Law Review Volume: 52 Issue: 2 Dated: (1983) Pages: 378-463
Date Published
1983
Length
86 pages
Annotation
Symposium papers analyze the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to determine whether it transcends traditional notions of substantive criminal responsibility, evaluate the use of forfeiture under RICO, and consider the application of traditional criminal law principles to the corporate defendant.
Abstract
The common theme running throughout the papers is that effective prosecution of white collar crime requires rules and techniques that will allow the Government to deal with groups of persons rather than with individual defendants. One paper examines RICO's conspiracy and 'group' enterprise concepts in relation to traditional conspiracy doctrine. It concludes that some courts have given an expansive reading to the Federal RICO statute, viewing the enterprise elements of RICO as replacing the inadequate 'wheel and chain' rationales of conspiracy law. The paper argues that this is a mistaken reading of RICO and that courts should maintain traditional conspiracy precepts in analyzing multi-defendant complicity in the RICO context. The paper that evaluates the RICO use of forfeiture considers (1) the application of forfeiture to the profits of the racketeering, (2) the time at which the Government may have the right to forfeiture, and (3) whether the statute requires tracing forfeited property to its present form or is more fully effected by allowing a choice of remedies. Another article analyzes the difficulties encountered in applying general rules of criminal law to the corporate defendant. Particular attention is given to whether two corporations possess the legal capacity to conspire with one another through a single agent who acts on behalf of both corporate entities and whether acquittal of the corporate agents through whom the corporation is alleged to have conspired requires acquittal of the corporate entity itself. In examining the future of RICO, the final paper concludes that there is still much room for debate on the statute's implications for due process, double jeopardy, cruel and unusual punishment, and selective prosecution. Extensive footnotes accompany each paper.