Word: law
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Critics blast RICO for the seemingly catchall provisions of both its criminal and its civil arms. "It's legislation on the cheap," says Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. "It's an attempt to use one statute to solve all the evils of society." Others say the law is a good example of justice made blind. Government investigators indicate that, as originally intended, RICO has significantly dented the operations of organized crime. But Notre Dame law professor G. Robert Blakey, one of its main drafters, insists that Congress never intended to restrict its application to the Mob. "We don't want...
RICO gives law enforcers extraordinary latitude because it focuses on patterns of criminal behavior rather than on individual crimes. It can target anyone involved in an "enterprise" that engages at least twice a decade in any of a broad range of criminal activities, from murder and extortion to mail and wire fraud. The law authorizes heavy prison sentences and carries a powerful economic punch. Convicted defendants must forfeit all their ill- gotten gains, including all "proceeds" from the enterprise...
...economic penalties of the law can squeeze some defendants into plea- bargain agreements. Threatened by a RICO indictment and its sweeping forfeitures, the investment-banking firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert pleaded guilty to lesser charges last year and was hit with $650 million in penalties. Equally troubling to RICO targets is the law's ability to seize temporarily the assets of an accused before a trial begins -- even funds that would be used to pay a defense attorney. "Suddenly, there are a lot of born-again civil libertarians on Wall Street," says Michael Waldman, legislative director for Public Citizen Congress...
Although civil RICO lawsuits total less than half of a percent of the federal civil caseload, the statute's civil provisions draw some of the heaviest fire. "The imaginations of prosecutors in drafting RICO indictments are at least restrained by the Justice Department," explains University of Texas law professor Michael Tigar, "but the imaginations of plaintiffs' lawyers are not similarly restrained." What encourages the creativity, says critics, is the possibility of obtaining treble damages and the enormous leverage of labeling an opponent a "racketeer." The result has been a widening array of civil RICO lawsuits, from common commercial litigation...
...angering Moscow. So far, the Baltic challenge has not erupted in ethnic violence and social anarchy; instead, it has been subtly expressed in arcane legal debate and parliamentary procedure. For President Mikhail Gorbachev, it represents both a bold affirmation of his goal of creating a society governed by law and an assault against the national union he has vowed to protect. How he responds could determine the future of perestroika...