Opinion ID: 1267352
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: VICAR Statute

Text: Farmer was convicted on three counts of violating the Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering (VICAR) statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1959(a), which provides, in relevant part: Whoever ... for the purpose of gaining entrance to or maintaining or increasing position in an enterprise engaged in racketeering activity, murders, kidnaps, maims, assaults with a dangerous weapon, commits assault resulting in serious bodily injury upon, or threatens to commit a crime of violence against any individual in violation of the laws of any State or the United States, or attempts or conspires so to do, shall be punished (1) for murder, by death or life imprisonment, or a fine under this title, or both;    (6) for attempting or conspiring to commit a crime involving maiming, assault with a dangerous weapon, or assault resulting in serious bodily injury, by imprisonment for not more than three years or a fine of under [ sic. ] this title, or both. 18 U.S.C. § 1959(a)(emphasis added). Farmer argues that the government failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his purpose in shooting White and Patterson was maintaining or increasing position in the Bloods, id., the enterprise identified in the indictment. Although section 1959(a) does not define the phrase `for the purpose of ... maintaining or increasing position in an enterprise,' we interpret that phrase by its plain terms, giving the ordinary meaning to its terms. United States v. Dhinsa, 243 F.3d 635, 671 (2d Cir.2001) (internal citation omitted). Webster's defines `maintain' as to `preserve from failure or decline' or `to sustain against opposition or danger,' WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 1362 (1993), and increase as `to become greater in some respect' (listing as examples, size, value, power, authority, reputation and wealth). Id. Accordingly, section 1959 encompasses violent crimes intended to preserve the defendant's position in the enterprise or to enhance his reputation and wealth within that enterprise. Id. (emphases omitted). Dhinsa broadly interpreted the motive requirement, and `reject[ed] any suggestion that the `for the purpose of' element requires the government to prove that maintaining or increasing position in the ... enterprise was the defendant's sole or principal motive.' Id. (quoting United States v. Concepcion, 983 F.2d 369, 381 (2d Cir.1992)). [T]he motive requirement is satisfied if `the jury could properly infer that the defendant committed his violent crime because he knew it was expected of him by reason of his membership in the enterprise or that he committed it in furtherance of that membership.' Id. (quoting Concepcion, 983 F.2d at 381); see also United States v. Pimentel, 346 F.3d 285, 295-96 (2d Cir.2003). Concepcion, which considered whether a defendant could be liable under § 1959 for shooting someone other than the intended victim, reject[ed] the suggestion that the government must prove that the victim of the violence was the defendant's intended target, and applied the well established principle that a defendant who planned to murder one person and, in so attempting, killed another is guilty of the murder of the unplanned victim. 983 F.2d at 381. We concluded in Concepcion that It was sufficient for the government to prove that [the defendant], as a member of a[n] ... enterprise engaged in racketeering activity, set out to commit a proscribed act of violence in order to maintain or increase his position in the enterprise, and that, in the course of so doing, he committed that act against a person who got in his way. Id. at 382. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that Farmer's sufficiency challenge is foreclosed by these precedents.