In a major blow to the government, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has reversed the convictions of each and every defendant in U.S. v. Douglas C. Adams, et al. This was a high-profile RICO public corruption prosecution (premised on an alleged vote-buying scheme) brought by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky. The Sixth Circuit vacated and remanded based on the following evidentiary errors: 1) admitting testimony from three cooperators regarding their drug-dealing activities with some of the defendants, which activities occurred 10 years prior to the alleged vote-buying scheme; 2) admitting an Inside Edition video that also discussed drug-dealing activities in the community; 3) admitting evidence of witness intimidation that could not be tied to any of the defendants; 4) the trial court's making of unprompted, substantive changes to the government's tape transcripts; 5) permitting use before the jury of the inaccurate transcripts that resulted from the unprompted changes; 6) admitting un-redacted, and highly prejudicial, versions of state election records which contained statements implicating the defendants in vote-buying schemes. This appears to be a case of government overkill in the presentation of its evidence, as the Sixth Circuit had no problem affirming the sufficiency of the evidence. The unanimous panel opinion was written by Judge Karen Nelson Moore. John Kline, Trevor Wells, and Jason Barclay argued the case for Appellants. With them on the various briefs were: Larry Mackey, Marty Pinales, Candace Crouse, Kent Westberry, Elizabeth Hughes, Jerry Gilbert, Robert Abell, Scott White, and Russ Baldani. Congratulations to all.
Tag: RICO
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The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a district court's dismissal of a RICO indictment against an attorney and others. (See Opinion - U.S. v. Bergrin here) RICO is clearly a complicated statute and the court's decision presents an extremely thorough review of many aspects of the law in this area. Typically, RICO is one of the few topics that need a few days of classes in order to truly understand its depth and breadth. The Supreme Court's continually allowance for RICO to be read broadly, brings it to an even higher level. Areas that continually plague readers/students is what constitutes a sufficient "enterprise" and when do you have a "pattern of racketeering activity." Justice Scalia in HJ Inc. criticizes the test of "continuity plus relationship" as set forth by the Court, as he says that this is "as helpful to the conduct of their affairs as 'life is a fountain.'"
This Third Circuit decision to reinstate the indictment comes on the heels of the Supreme Court's 2009 decision in Boyle (see here), where the Court held that RICO association-in-fact enterprises require an "ascertainable structure beyond that inherent in the pattern of racketeering activity in which it engages, but no – "an instruction framed in this precise language is not necessary."The Court held that an association-in-fact enterprise needs to have "three structural features: a purpose, relationships among those associated with the enterprise, and longevity sufficient to permit these associates to pursue the enterprise's purpose." At the time the Boyle decision came down, I blogged that the decision would be "very helpful for government prosecutions in that it allows RICO cases to be brought with the jury being told a minimal amount of what is required for a RICO enterprise."
This Third Circuit decision confirms that the government will have an easier time in presenting RICO cases. Whether the defendant and others will be convicted in this case remains to be seen, but for now it is clear that the breadth of RICO will allow this matter to move forward.
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Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum – the Second Circuit looks at whether a corporation can be held liable under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes in his decision asked "whether a plaintiff bringing an ATS suit against a corporation has alleged a violation of customary international law." He holds "[t]he concept of corporate liability for violations of customary international law has not achieved universal recognition or acceptance as a norm in the relations of States with each other. Inasmuch as plaintiffs assert claims against corporations only, their complaint must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction." (citation omitted). Circuit Judge Leval, authoring a concurring opinion, agreed that the "claims pleaded against the Appellants must be dismissed," but noted that he could not join "the majority’s creation of an unprecedented concept of international law that exempts juridical persons from compliance with its rules. The majority’s rule conflicts with two centuries of federal precedent on the ATS, and deals a blow to the efforts of international law to protect human rights."
Commentary – One has to wonder whether this case can be used to show why corporate criminal liability should be treated differently on occasion from individual liability?
Norex Petroleum v. Acess Industries – the Second Circuit looks at "whether a United States federal court can properly hear a claim under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act ("RICO"), 18 U.S.C. § 1961 et seq, arising from allegations of a conspiracy which primarily involves foreign actors and foreign acts." The court refers to the recent decision in Morrison v. National Australian Bank Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869 (2010) and holds, "that absent an express intention by Congress of extraterritorial effect, a statute applies only domestically." The court notes that "RICO 'is silent as to any extraterritorial application.'" The court states that "Morrison wholeheartedly embraces application of the presumption against extraterritoriality, finding that 'unless there is the affirmative intention of the Congress clearly expressed to give a statute extraterritorial effect, we must presume it is primarily concerned with domestic conditions.'" (citations omitted).
Commentary – As RICO is both a criminal and civil statute, will this mean that prosecutors can not apply RICO extraterritorially?
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Hemi Group v. City of New York, was decided by the Supreme Court with Chief Justice Roberts authoring the opinion (Scalia, Thomas, and Alito joined and Ginsburg joined in part). A dissent was written by Justice Breyer (Stevens and Kennedy joined). Justice Sotomayor did not participate in this case. The case provides guidance on what is required to meet civil RICO's causal element. The Court states:
"The City of New York taxes the possession of cigarettes. Hemi Group, based in New Mexico, sells cigarettes online to residents of the City. Neither state nor city law requires Hemi to charge, collect, or remit the tax, and the purchasers seldom pay it on their own. Federal law, however, requires out-of-state vendors such as Hemi to submit customer information to the States into which they ship the cigarettes.
Against that backdrop, the City filed this lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), alleging that Hemi failed to file the required customer information with the State. That failure, the City argues, constitutes mail and wire fraud, which caused it to lose tens of millions of dollars in unrecovered cigarette taxes. Because the City cannot show that it lost the tax revenue "by reason of" the alleged RICO violation, 18 U. S. C. §1964(c), we hold that the City cannot state a claim under RICO. We therefore reverse the Court of Appeals’ decision to the contrary." (emphasis added)
The Court also stated that "[p]ut simply, Hemi’s obligation was to file the Jenkins Act reports with the State, not the City, and the City’s harm was directly caused by the customers, not Hemi. We have never before stretched the causal chain of a RICO violation so far, and we decline to do so today."
Justice Ginsburg additionally notes, "I resist reading RICO to allow the City to end-run its lack of authority to collect tobacco taxes from Hemi Group or to reshape the "quite limited remedies" Congress has provided for violations of the Jenkins Act."
The dissent finds the "failure to provide the" state "with the names and addresses of its New York City cigarette customers proximately caused New York City to lose tobacco tax revenue."
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