| Abstract: | In 1970, the Congress enacted the Organized Crime Control Act. Title IX of the 1970 Act is the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt
Organization Act or RICO. This Act had its origins in legislation going back as far as 1934, but coming forward to 1961. The
1970 Act borrowed ideas from this earlier legislation, principally “enterprise,” but also the use predicate statutes to define
“racketeering activity.” The ideas are not new, but their combination affects how prosecutors and law enforcement agents investigate,
try, and sanction violations of the Act. RICO’s drafting also reflects organizational theory and economic analysis. The investigation
and prosecution of a single crime committed by an individual on a single day and in a single place maybe done using one set
of procedural and evidentiary rules. Nevertheless, the investigation and prosecution of patterns of diverse offenses committed
by, through, and against licit and illicit enterprises require sophisticated procedures, evidentiary rules, and criminal sanctions.
In addition, antisocial conduct is more than a challenge to the administration of criminal justice; it also requires the full
panoply of civil sanctions, including public injunctions as well private enforcement of injunctive relief and treble damages.
RICO has had a profound effect on the prosecution of organized crime, white-collar crime, and other forms of similar criminal
behavior.
William J. & Dorothy K. O’Neill Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School; A.B. 1957, University of Notre Dame; J.D. 1960, Notre
Dame Law School. Professor Blakey was the Chief Counsel of the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures of the United
States Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1969-70 when the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, Pub. L. No. 91-542, 84 Stat.
922 (1970) was processed, Title IX of which is the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act or RICO. For a general
treatment of the statute from a variety of perceptive, see the collection of law review literature in G. Robert Blakey & Kevin
Roddy, “Reflections on Reves v. Ernst & Young: Its Meaning an Impact on Substantive, Accessory, Aiding, Abetting and Conspiracy
Liability under RICO,” 33 Amer. Crim. L. Rev. 1345, 1348 n. 3(1996). |
