This Civil RICO Weapon

[Ed Martin]

The original attorney for the damned was Clarence
Darrow.  That was the title for a collection of his
best closing arguments, with intro by Wm O Douglas,
compiled by his biographer Arthur Weinberg.  

Darrow was counsel for the railroad against which
Eugene V Debs was leading his American Railway Union
on strike, thereby drawing on himself the full wrath
of the gilded age legal system.  Darrow went to the
CEO one day and told him that he thought Debs was
right and he was switching sides and represent him.  

That started his career representing enemies of the
state and the interests, which he continued for 40
years.  He's nn enormously appealing figure for
anybody interested in the history of the American
preterite.


> VLVL2 (15): This Civil RICO Weapon

> 
> Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 17:56:27 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com>
> Subject: VLVL2 (15): This Civil RICO Weapon
> 
>    "'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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