Law Commons^™

Shaping Today's Forfeiture Law: A Conversation With Senator Mcclellan, G. Robert Blakey

Journal Articles

In any society, the government's ability to interfere with life, liberty or property is always open for full discussion. In this conversation, Professor Blakey discusses property in the context of organized and white-collar crime, in addition to criminal forfeiture, and frames his discussion around his work with Senator John McClellan on drafting the Organized Crime Control Act.

Foreword, G. Robert Blakey

Journal Articles

The past twenty years witnessed a sea change in the way that organized crime is investigated, prosecuted, and sanctioned, both criminally and civilly. RICO allowed the law to catch up with the rest of society. In the twentieth century, organizations, not people, control the important elements of society such as: government, commerce and labor. Until the passage of RICO, organizations as such were seldom the fcus of the law-outside of, perhaps, the antitrust statutes. This is no longer true.

RICO, however, is not limited to the activities of traditional Mafia families. It does not matter to a racketeering victim what …

The Organized Crime Act (S. 30) Or Its Critics: Which Threatens Civil Liberties, John L. Mcclellan, G. Robert Blakey

Journal Articles

On January 23, 1970, the Senate passed by the overwhelming vote of 73 to 1, S. 30, the Organized Crime Control Act of 1969. During the debate in the Senate, S. 30 was subjected to indiscriminate charges that it would, in the words of the American Civil Liberties Union, "make drastic incursions on civil liberties" and that it ran "counter to the letter and spirit of the Constitution."

Certain newspaper commentators and a prominent mayor have echoed those charges, and recently a report critical of several key titles of S. 30 was published by the Committee on Federal Legislation of …