VLVL2 (15): This Civil RICO Weapon

[Dave Monroe]

   "'I'll ask Elmhurst.'  Zoyd's lawyer, eho'd
inherited his father's practice and role as North
Coast attorney for the damned, had taken Zoyd's case
without asking for a fee, prophetically fearing that
this civil RICO weapon would be the prosecutorial wave
of the future and figuring that he might as well get
educated now...."  (VL, Ch. 15, p. 359f.)


Elmhurst

Hurst: Clearing 

http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/places.html

HURST:  Middle English place name meaning "thicket of
trees."

http://www.20000-names.com/male_h_names.htm

"A ‘hurst’ is an Old English hyrst or wooded hill"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/places/names/names_h.shtml

E.g. ...

http://www.elmhurst.org/


"attorney for the damned"

"the damned" = The Preterite?

>From Harold Bloom, Omens of Millenium (New York:
Riverhead, 1996) ...

"The Satan of the Book of Job is 'the adversary,' or
prosecuting attorney, a servant of God in good
standing, and in no way evil...." (p. 63)


RICO

TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE 
PART I - CRIMES 
CHAPTER 96 - RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT
ORGANIZATIONS 

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
("RICO") Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-68 (1994)

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/pIch96.html

http://www.ricoact.com/ricoact/nutshell.asp

http://www.ricoact.com/ricoact/theact.asp

In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, Title 18, United
States Code, Sections 1961-1968. At the time,
Congress' goal was to eliminate the ill-affects of
organized crime on the nation's economy. To put it
bluntly, RICO was intended to destroy the Mafia. 

Throughout the 1970's, RICO's intended purpose and its
actual use ran parallel to each other. Seldom was RICO
used outside of the context of the Mafia, and it is
not an overstatement to say that civil claims under
RICO were simply not brought. 

In the 1980's, however, civil lawyers noticed section
1964(c) of the RICO Act, which allows civil claims to
be brought by any person injured in their business or
property by reason of a RICO violation. Any person who
succeeded in establishing a civil RICO claim would
automatically receive judgment in the amount of three
times their actual damages and would be awarded their
costs and attorneys' fees. The financial windfall
available under RICO inspired the creativity of
lawyers across the nation, and by the late 1980's,
RICO was a (if not the most) commonly asserted claim
in federal court. Everyone was trying to depict civil
claims, such as common law fraud, product defect, and
breach of contract as criminal wrongdoing, which would
in turn enable the filing of a civil RICO action. 

RICO's broad application was the result of Congress'
inclusion of mail and wire fraud as two crimes upon
which a RICO claim could be brought. Given the breadth
of activities that had historically been criminally
prosecuted under the mail and wire fraud statutes, it
was not difficult for creative civil attorneys to
depict practically any wrongdoing as mail or wire
fraud. 

During the 1990's, the federal courts, guided by the
United States Supreme Court, engaged in a concerted
effort to limit the scope of RICO in the civil
context. As a result of this effort, civil litigants
must jump many hurdles and avoid many pitfalls before
they can expect the financial windfall available under
RICO, and RICO has become one of the most complicated
and unpredictable areas of the law. 

Today, RICO is almost never applied to the Mafia.
Instead, it is applied to individuals, businesses,
political protest groups, and terrorist organizations.
In short, a RICO claim can arise in almost any
context. 

http://www.ricoact.com/index.asp


"'May your life be full of lawyers'"

Cf. ...

"May you lead an interesting life" ...


	
		
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