Word: rico
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...appetite. Drafted in extremely unrestrictive language during a period of concern over organized crime, it enables conviction of all members of a "criminal enterprise," not just the gunsels. And its penalties are steep: up to 20 years in jail for each criminal count and triple damages in civil judgments. RICO quickly proved a sterling Mob stopper, as dozens of capos like New York City's John Gotti can testify. But when lawyers in the mid-'80s realized how broadly written it was, it mutated wildly. Prosecutors turned it on white-collar criminals like junk- bond-king Michael Milken. Plaintiffs...
...RICO had so much momentum that NOW, embarked on a large antitrust case it had first brought in Delaware, changed the suit's focus to racketeering under the direction of Fay Clayton, a Chicago lawyer with RICO experience. The defendant list was amended to include Terry as well as Scheidler, and the alleged rackets grew to include forcible "invasion" of clinics, burglary (a theft from a dumpster of fetal material) and arson...
...while noting that clinic violence was "reprehensible," refused to let Clayton try to prove that the defendants had committed it. The reasoning: a criminal "enterprise" must be dedicated to economic gain. Last week, however, Rehnquist disagreed. "We do not think this is so," he wrote simply. And "nowhere in ((RICO)) is there any indication that an economic motive is required...
Upon reading that, the defendants, at least initially, acted a lot like losers. They cried foul, proclaimed defiance and plotted evasion. "A vulgar betrayal of over 200 years of tolerance toward protest," said Terry. Reverend Keith Tucci, also of Rescue, notes that RICO might force currently open protesters into a more violent underground. Scheidler pooh-poohs triple damages on grounds of his own poverty -- "you can't get blood from a turnip" -- and then reels off a couple of nonviolent schemes that might sidestep RICO. Spilling cranberry juice on white snow to simulate fetal blood might have impact, he suggests...
...economics," says Notre Dame law professor G. Robert Blakey, who argued before the court. "But I'll win Round No. 2 on innocence." In order to make her newly revived case, Clayton must prove that the pro-lifers engaged twice or more in crimes covered by RICO, and that they did so in connection with the defendants. She claims abundant evidence to this effect. For his part, Blakey brandishes a letter from the explosives chief at the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms stating that "there is no indication that any particular group has acted in unison...