Law Commons^™

A Psa On The Csaa: How The Child Soldiers Accountability Act Should Guide The United States’ Approach To Criminalizing The Recruitment Of Minors Into Gangs, Chandler Marshall

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The use and recruitment of child soldiers in situations of armed conflict has been widely documented over the past century, discussed in the media and in academia, and condemned by prominent members of the international community. Beginning in the 20th century, international legal frameworks were developed to protect children in vulnerable communities across the globe and punish those responsible for their recruitment in regions of armed conflict. While the international community and the United States have taken great strides to protect children from recruitment and militarization, the United States lacks any effective domestic laws to protect vulnerable children on American …

Born In The U.S.A.: Analyzing The Domesticity Of Judgments In The Civil Rico Context, Alex Reid

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rico's Long Arm, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

RICO has for over 50 years presented something of a parlor game for lawyers, mostly because its text leaves wide latitude in interpretation. And, as is often the case with RICO, resolution of one question begets more. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Yegiazaryan v. Smagin proves no exception. Here, the Court brought some clarity to a question left open by RJR Nabisco: viz, what must one plead and prove to satisfy the “domestic injury” requirement necessary to invoke an extraterritorial application of RICO. The Court held that a foreign plaintiff can indeed, given the right facts and circumstances, establish …

Union Autonomy And Federal Intrusion, Hannah Borowski

University of Colorado Law Review

Union autonomy, a critical aspect of the health and growth of unions and employee power broadly, is weakened by (1) the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) attempts to target organized crime through civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) litigation against unions and (2) the creation of federal trusteeships in settlement, both of which can be analyzed through litigation between the DOJ and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (Teamsters or IBT) at the end of the 20th century. The field of compliance offers a solution to prevent these breaches of union autonomy. Relying on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and the …

Payors, Players, And Proximate Cause, Elisabeth F. Crusey

Notre Dame Law Review

At issue is whether pharmaceutical companies’ allegedly misleading drug labels that providers rely upon when prescribing drugs to patients, which plaintiffs classify as mail and wire fraud, are the proximate causes of third-party payors (TPPs) overpaying for medication, or enduring a financial injury, such that the TPPs fulfill RICO standing under 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c). Included in this issue are questions about whether the alleged RICO violations directly caused the TPPs’ financial injuries such that plaintiffs meet the proximate cause requirements under § 1964(c) to state a valid claim. Presently, the First, Third, and Ninth Circuits agree that allegations of …

Quo Vadis? Assessing New York’S Civil Forfeiture Law, Steven L. Kessler

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Game Theory Optimized Fraud: How The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act Created A Virtually Riskless Environment For White Collar Crime In Online Poker, Jeffrey Woolf

Upper Level Writing Requirement Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Guilt By Association On The Docks And In The Casinos, Conor Byrnes

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rico Had A Birthday! A Fifty-Year Retrospective Of Questions Answered And Open, Randy D. Gordon

Marquette Law Review

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) came into

the world in 1970, a time of great social upheaval that was accompanied by

shifting attitudes towards both crime and civil litigation. From the outset, the

statute’s complexity, ambiguity, and uncertain purpose have confounded courts

and commentators. At least some doubts as to the statute’s meaning and

application arise because it has criminal and civil components that subject it

to the twin—yet antithetical—social impulses to be “tough on crime” while

containing a perceived “litigation explosion.” In this Article, I situate RICO

in this larger context and offer that context as …

Algorithms And Omertà: A Discussion Of Compatibility Between Seemingly Disparate Legal Spheres, Cameron Chuback

University of Miami Law Review

This Note assesses the viability of federal prosecutors’ use of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) to prosecute spoofing, a market manipulating trading practice characterized by the cancellation of large orders meant to artificially alter market prices. Traditional spoofing convictions have been difficult to secure because of spoofing’s complicated and esoteric nature and difficult-to-prove elements. Now, for the first time, prosecutors in United States v. Smith have indicted alleged spoofers under RICO, which Congress designed with the intent to overcome evidentiary difficulties in organized crime prosecutions, particularly prosecutions of the American Mafia. However, the disparity between spoofing and …

High Crimes: Liability For Directors Of Retail Marijuana Corporations, Lauren A. Newell

Law Faculty Scholarship

Selling retail marijuana in the United States is illegal — or is it? A rising number of states have legalized the retail sale of marijuana and are busily regulating these sales and the companies that make them. Even so, the sale of marijuana is a crime under federal law. Are companies that sell retail marijuana duly sanctioned, productive contributors to their state economies, or are they felons just waiting for the wheels of justice to turn in their direction? At this moment, no one can answer that question with certainty.

What is certain is that more companies are being formed …

Trafficking To The Rescue?, Julie A. Dahlstrom

Faculty Scholarship

Since before the dawn of the #MeToo Movement, civil litigators have been confronted with imperfect legal responses to gender-based harms. Some have sought to envision and develop innovative legal strategies. One new, increasingly successful tactic has been the deployment of federal anti-trafficking law in certain cases of domestic violence and sexual assault. In 2017, for example, victims of sexual assault filed federal civil suits under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (“TVPRA”) against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Plaintiffs argued that the alleged sexual assault conduct amounted to “commercial sex acts” and sex trafficking. Other plaintiffs’ lawyers have similarly invoked trafficking …

Rico Extraterritoriality, Rjr Nabisco And Shareholder Residence – A Key Consideration In Determining Rico Domestic Injury, Laurence A. Steckman, Esq., Adam J. Rader, Esq.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Criminal Statutes To Regulate Financial Markets In The United States, Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus

No abstract provided.

Making Meaning: Towards A Narrative Theory Of Statutory Interpretation And Judicial Justification, Randy D. Gordon

Randy D. Gordon

The act of judging is complex involving finding facts, interpreting law, and then deciding a particular dispute. But these are not discreet functions: they bleed into one another and are thus interdependent. This article aims to reveal-at least in part-how judges approach this process. To do so, I look at three sets of civil RICO cases that align and diverge from civil antitrust precedents. I then posit that the judges in these cases base their decisions on assumptions about RICO's purpose. These assumptions, though often tacit and therefore not subject to direct observation, are nonetheless sometimes revealed when a judge …

Regulating Offshore Finance, William J. Moon

Faculty Scholarship

From the Panama Papers to the Paradise Papers, massive document leaks in recent years have exposed trillions of dollars hidden in small offshore jurisdictions. Attracting foreign capital with low tax rates and environments of secrecy, a growing number of offshore jurisdictions have emerged as major financial havens hosting thousands of hedge funds, trusts, banks, and insurance companies.

While the prevailing account has examined offshore financial havens as “tax havens” that facilitate the evasion or avoidance of domestic tax, this Article uncovers how offshore jurisdictions enable corporations to evade domestic regulatory law. Specifically, recent U.S. Supreme Court cases restricting the geographic …

Rethinking Civil Rico: The Vexing Problem Of Causation In Fraud-Based Claims Under 18 U.S.C. § 1962(C), Randy D. Gordon

Randy D. Gordon

To recover in a private action, the three-part structure of RICO demands proof of particularized crimes at two levels and civil standing to sue for those crimes. The interpretation and application of the standing requirement — which arises from the statute’s mandate that compensable injuries be caused “by reason of” acts of racketeering — have bedeviled courts and litigants for decades. Recent developments in class action law have exacerbated the problem. As more and more courts have rendered it nearly impossible to certify classes asserting state-law claims, class plaintiffs have turned to uniform federal laws like RICO. But civil RICO …

Of Gangs And Gaggles: Can A Corporation Be Part Of An Association-In-Fact Rico Enterprise? Linguistic, Historical, And Rhetorical Perspectives, Randy D. Gordon

Randy D. Gordon

Over 30 years ago, courts of appeals began to hold that the RICO statute’s definition of association-in-fact enterprise is broad enough to include corporations as constituent members, even though that definition states that such an association is limited to a “group of individuals.” This Article demonstrates why these cases were wrongly decided from a variety of perspectives: linguistic, systemic and consequentialist. It also suggests a strategy for correcting this widespread interpretive error and provides evidence that the Supreme Court may be disposed to agree that the lower courts have uniformly erred.

Crimes That Count Twice: A Reexamination Of Rico's Nexus Requirements Under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962(C) And 1964(C), Randy D. Gordon

Randy D. Gordon

The complicated structure of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act makes it difficult to determine when “ordinary” crimes spill over into RICO violations. This Article examines and synthesizes various “nexus” requirements that courts have devised to separate non-RICO crimes from full-blown RICO violations. The Article concludes with a discussion of the United States Supreme Court’s recent holding in Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corporation, 126 S. Ct. 1991 (2006), which sharply limits certain types of civil RICO claims.

Clarity And Confusion: Rico's Recent Trips To The United States Supreme Court, Randy D. Gordon

Randy D. Gordon

The complicated structure of the Racketeer and Corrupt Organization Act has bedeviled courts courts and litigants since its adoption four decades ago. Two questions have recurred with some frequency. First, is victim reliance an element of a civil RICO claim predicated on allegations of fraud? Second, what is the difference between an illegal association-in-fact and an ordinary civil conspiracy? In a series of three recent cases, the United States Supreme Court brought much needed clarity to the first question. But in another recent case, the Court upended decades of circuit-court precedent holding that an actionable association-in-fact must be embody a …

The Federal Criminal Forfeiture Statute: Reining In The Government’S Previously Unbridled Ability To Seize Pretrial Assets, Kristyn Fleming Francese

Pace Law Review

American organized crime movies are synonymous with a climatic raid and seizure of illegal assets – typically drugs and guns. But what is really encompassed within the Government’s grasp; what are the “illegal assets”? The truth is that the Government has a wide reach and the criminal seizures don’t end when the screen goes black and the credits roll. The Federal Criminal Forfeiture Statute, as applied to RICO and CCE cases, typically entails the forfeiture of any asset connected to the underlying crimes. Given that criminal forfeiture penalties have ethical and constitutional considerations, it is not surprising to learn that …

Although A Presumption Against Extraterritoriality Generally Precludes A Foreign Plaintiff From Recovering A Debtor’S Assets In A Civil Rico Claim, That Presumption Can Be Overcome To Hold A Foreign Defendant Liable For A Preference Claim, Amanda M. Schaefer

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

The civil portion of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) permits any individual “injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of the statute’s criminal provisions” to pursue a cause of action against a tort feasor. For a party to pursue a civil remedy for economic injury under the civil portion of the statute, its criminal portion must first be violated through illegal activity, such as numerous acts of mail and wire fraud. In RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community (“RJR Nabisco”), the Supreme Court held that RICO’s private right of action under …

Rico Run Amok, John K. Cornwell

SMU Law Review

In 1970, Congress enacted RICO to eradicate organized crime in America. To enlist the help of private citizens in this effort, the statute included civil provisions providing treble damages for plaintiffs who proved that they were injured by a pattern of racketeering activity. As the decades passed, civil RICO dramatically expanded its reach, addressing misconduct in a diverse array of contexts, including high-profile suits against the Clinton Foundation and Trump University. This Article examines this evolution, focusing on three factors that have figured prominently in civil RICO’s runaway growth: the broad interpretation of what constitutes a RICO “enterprise”; the flexibility …

Making Meaning: Towards A Narrative Theory Of Statutory Interpretation And Judicial Justification, Randy D. Gordon

Randy D. Gordon

Retaliatory Rico And The Puzzle Of Fraudulent Claiming, Nora Freeman Engstrom

Michigan Law Review

Over the past century, the allegation that the tort liability system incentivizes legal extortion and is chock-full of fraudulent claims has dominated public discussion and prompted lawmakers to ever-more-creatively curtail individuals’ incentives and opportunities to seek redress. Unsatisfied with these conventional efforts, in recent years, at least a dozen corporate defendants have “discovered” a new fraud-fighting tool. They’ve started filing retaliatory RICO suits against plaintiffs and their lawyers and experts, alleging that the initiation of certain non meritorious litigation constitutes racketeering activity— while tort reform advocates have applauded these efforts and exhorted more “courageous” companies to follow suit. Curiously, though, …

Equitable Relief For Private Rico Plaintiffs: Using Donziger To Remedy Courthouse Corruption, Anna Hanke

Journal of Law and Policy

In Chevron Corp. v. Steven Donziger, the Southern District of New York granted Chevron an injunction against Donziger under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, preventing the enforcement of an Ecuadorean judgment against it in the United States. This Note discusses the circuit court split on whether injunctive relief may be granted in a civil RICO suit, arguing that injunctive relief is an available remedy within the statute’s plain meaning, legislative intent, and evolving jurisprudence of civil RICO. The Note applies the Donziger interpretation of RICO to a case of a similarly corrupted judgment, Caperton v. A.T. Massey …

Equitable Relief For Private Rico Plaintiffs: Using Donziger To Remedy Courthouse Corruption, Anna Hanke

Journal of Law and Policy

In Chevron Corp. v. Steven Donziger, the Southern District of New York granted Chevron an injunction against Donziger under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, preventing the enforcement of an Ecuadorean judgment against it in the United States. This Note discusses the circuit court split on whether injunctive relief may be granted in a civil RICO suit, arguing that injunctive relief is an available remedy within the statute’s plain meaning, legislative intent, and evolving jurisprudence of civil RICO. The Note applies the Donziger interpretation of RICO to a case of a similarly corrupted judgment, Caperton v. A.T. Massey …

A Guide To Commonly Used Federal Statutes In Public Corruption Cases, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

When corruption prosecutors pick up their federal codebooks to determine which statutes should be used, their task is not as simple as turning to a chapter entitled “Public Corruption Offenses.” Not only is there no such chapter, there are not even any individual statutes that purport to charge something called “corruption.” Instead, relevant charges for public corruption crimes can be found in many different federal statutes, including some that might not be intuitive. In this Practitioner Toolkit, we set forth the federal statutes most commonly used to charge the conduct that we think of as “corruption,” including but not limited …

Making Meaning: Towards A Narrative Theory Of Statutory Interpretation And Judicial Justification, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

The act of judging is complex involving finding facts, interpreting law, and then deciding a particular dispute. But these are not discreet functions: they bleed into one another and are thus interdependent. This article aims to reveal-at least in part-how judges approach this process. To do so, I look at three sets of civil RICO cases that align and diverge from civil antitrust precedents. I then posit that the judges in these cases base their decisions on assumptions about RICO's purpose. These assumptions, though often tacit and therefore not subject to direct observation, are nonetheless sometimes revealed when a judge …

The Rico Trend In Class Action Warfare, Briana Lynn Rosenbaum

Scholarly Works

Aggregate litigation, including class actions and mass actions, have been under attack for decades. Recent Supreme Court cases have further weakened class actions, and the current Congress is considering numerous aggregate litigation and tort reform efforts. Recently, defendants in aggregate litigation have employed an additional tactic by filing civil RICO cases against plaintiffs’ counsel. In a number of these cases, defendants’ primarily allegation is that plaintiffs’ counsel are fraudulently inflating the value of lawsuits by filing baseless lawsuits as part of aggregate litigation. In some of these cases, the predicate acts consist solely of litigation filings: the filing of complaints …