The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Statute of 1970 - Case Study Example

This paper highlights in-depth analysis of RICO including various ways of RICO being used, criticisms made by the civil libertarians and legal establishments. Additionally, it will analyze the expansion of RICO due to the Supreme Court cases. As mentioned before, much of the criminal procedure has been expanded due to the use of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act of 1970 (RICO). Defining the phrase "organized crime" used in RICO has proven to be somewhat indefinable. For example, it took twenty years to eliminate La Cosa Nostra.

Its special strike forces were disbanded by the Justice Department in 1990 under RICO. The law RICO itself did not try to define the organized crime other than listing a number of crimes alleged to be committed by racketeers. Organized crime or racketeering is mostly defined by RICO in a manner of committing racketeering activity by a group or an individual as a part of an enterprise.1 It has blurred the lines amid the federal law enforcement and state. The expansion of the federal crime law has been introduced due to the attempts of federal bureaucrats and politicians to do something regarding the increased crime rates.

Mostly to prevent the illegal use of drug in America and to punish people who are involved in so called "white-collar" crime. RICO was passed by the Congress in 1970 under the President Richard Nixon's 'crime bill.' However However, according to the federal prosecutors, RICO is a powerful tool that can be used against the business owners. For example, Rudy Guiliani, who prosecuted Michael Milken including other leading lights of the Wall Street in 1980's, rose to become one of the first mayors of the New York City and a public speaker who collected $75,000 on every speech, was involved in the earliest attempts to expand RICO to prosecute few of the private business figures.

Despite the federal prosecutors, RICO has helped a little or not at all in stopping crimes like rape, murder, robbery etc. which was the major concern of the public in 1970's. It has only enabled the federal prosecutors to avoid the separation of constitutional powers amid the state and the national governments. Since RICO was introduced, the jurisdictional boundaries along with the federal law enforcement and state have been removed.2 On the other hand, there are a variety of RICO civil and criminal cases that have appealed for the reason that the statutes are conflicting with the fundamental constitutional protections.

Most of the cases are focused on the First Amendment protections of speech and assembly plus the Sixth Amendment which concerns about the access to double threat and legal counsel. Cases in the First Amendment include the usage of RICO in obscenity trails. Main issues in this section are the use of forfeiture which involves a former restraint or rely on distantly strained obscenity statutes. It was the Meese Commission on Pornography of 1985 who supported the use of forfeiture so that obscenity from American society is eliminated permanently.

But however, in the case of U.S. vs. Pryba (1988) the National Obscenity Enforcement Unit refused to the claim made not in favor of RICO. In some way, RICO reintroduced the criminal forfeitures