Opinion ID: 1034078
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: rico predicate act

Text: Defendants contend that vote buying in violation of Kentucky Revised Statute § 119.205 does not constitute “bribery” and therefore is not “racketeering activity” under RICO.2 In other words, defendants claim that vote buying is not a valid predicate act for the purposes of RICO. Under RICO, “racketeering activity” is (A) any act or threat involving . . . bribery . . . , which is chargeable under State law and punishable by imprisonment for more than one year; (B) any act which is indictable under any of the following provisions of title 18, United States Code: Section 201 (relating to bribery), section 224 (relating to sports bribery) . . . . 2 Defendant Bowling first raised this argument in his motion for judgment of acquittal or for a new trial, which he filed six months after the jury returned its guilty verdict. R. 1053-2 (Bowling Mot. for Acquittal at 7–10) (Page ID #13010–13). The district court struck Bowling’s invalid-predicate argument from his motion on the ground that it was untimely, R. 1056 (10/04/2010 D. Ct. Op. at 8–9, 13) (Page ID #13049–50, 13054), and Bowling later filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction based on the same argument, R. 1074 (Bowling Mot. to Dismiss) (Page ID #13222–25). The district court determined that “Bowling’s argument is more properly framed as a challenge to the sufficiency of the indictment” and denied the motion on the merits, determining that Kentucky Revised Statute § 119.205 is a valid predicate offense for RICO. R. 1081 (12/07/2010 D. Ct. Op. at 3, 16–17) (Page ID #13290, 13303–04). Nos. 11-5291/ 5308/ 5311/ 5312/ 5313/ United States v. Adams et al. Page 8 5336/ 5337/ 5366 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1). Therefore, the question before this court is whether vote buying, chargeable under Kentucky law, is an act involving bribery. Legislative history informs us that § 1961(1)(A) lists predicate state offenses by reference to their “generic designation” and that § 1961(1)(B) lists predicate federal offenses by “specific reference.” H.R. Rep. No. 91-1549, at 56 (1970). As illustrated in the present case, this arrangement presents some difficulty because states classify offenses differently. Defendants note that Kentucky Revised Statute § 119.205 does not use the term “bribery.”3 Thus, according to defendants, vote buying in violation of Kentucky Revised Statute § 119.205 is not an act involving bribery. Although this argument has some superficial appeal, “[t]he labels placed on a state statute do not determine whether that statute proscribes bribery for purposes of the RICO statute.” United States v. Garner, 837 F.2d 1404, 1418 (7th Cir. 1987). Instead, “[t]he test for determining whether the charged acts fit into the generic category of the predicate offense is whether the indictment charges a type of activity generally known or characterized in the proscribed category, namely, any act or threat involving bribery.” United States v. Forsythe, 560 F.2d 1127, 1137 (3d Cir. 1977); see Garner, 837 F.2d at 1418 (“Thus, any statute that proscribes conduct which could be generically defined as bribery can be the basis for a predicate act.”); see also Scheidler v. Nat’l Org. for Women, Inc., 537 U.S. 393, 409–10 (2003) (discussing United States v. Nardello, 393 U.S. 286 (1969), in the context of RICO predicate offenses). Therefore, we must consider whether vote buying is the type of activity that is generally known or characterized as involving bribery.4 3 The statute reads in part: “Any person who makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate or public question at an election shall be guilty of a Class D felony.” KY. REV. STAT. ANN. § 119.205(1). 4 As an initial matter, we note that bribery under RICO is not limited to its early common-law definition, which relates to acts of public officials. Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42–45 (1979) (holding that commercial bribery falls under the definition of bribery under the Travel Act, which was passed nine years before RICO was enacted). Nos. 11-5291/ 5308/ 5311/ 5312/ 5313/ United States v. Adams et al. Page 9 5336/ 5337/ 5366 Although intuitively vote buying strikes us as an offense that involves bribery, we need not rest our decision on intuition. First, The Model Penal Code (“MPC”), which the Supreme Court has considered in construing RICO’s provisions, supports our determination that vote buying in violation of Kentucky law constitutes an act involving bribery under RICO. Scheidler, 537 U.S. at 410 (“[W]here as here the Model Penal Code and a majority of States recognize the crime of extortion as requiring a party to obtain or to seek to obtain property, as the Hobbs Act requires, the state extortion offense for purposes of RICO must have a similar requirement.”); see Perrin, 444 U.S. at 45 n.11 (looking to the MPC in construing the Travel Act). The MPC states that “[a] person is guilty of bribery, a felony of the third degree, if he offers . . . (1) any pecuniary benefit as consideration for the recipient’s . . . vote or other exercise of discretion as a . . . voter.” MODEL PENAL CODE § 240.1. Vote buying in violation of Kentucky Revised Statute § 119.205 is well within the prohibition of bribery under the MPC. Second, other states’ classification of vote buying as a bribery offense, which the Supreme Court has also considered in construing RICO’s provisions, shows that vote buying is generally understood as an act involving bribery. Scheidler, 537 U.S. at 410. As noted by the district court, a majority of states considers vote buying to be a form of bribery.5 R. 1081 (12/07/2010 D. Ct. Op. at 11–12 n.1) (Page ID #13298–99) (listing twenty-six states that classify vote buying as a bribery offense or as involving bribery). Finally, the provisions of RICO must be construed liberally “to effectuate its remedial purpose[],” which is “to seek the eradication of organized crime in the United States by strengthening the legal tools in the evidence-gathering process, by establishing new 5 For example: ARIZ. REV. STAT. ANN. § 16-1006.A (“It is unlawful for a person knowingly by . . . bribery . . . , either directly or indirectly: 1. To attempt to influence an elector in casting his vote or to deter him from casting his vote.”); FL. STAT. § 104.061(1) (“Whoever by bribery . . . , either directly or indirectly, attempts to influence . . . any elector in voting or interferes with him or her in the free exercise of the elector’s right to vote at any election commits a felony of the third degree.”); KAN. STAT. ANN. § 252409 (“Election bribery is conferring, offering or agreeing to confer, or soliciting, accepting or agreeing to accept any benefit as consideration to or from any person either to vote or withhold any person’s vote, or to vote for or against any candidate or question submitted at any public election.”); OHIO REV. CODE ANN. § 3599.01 (“(A) No person shall . . . during . . . any . . . election: . . . (3) . . . pay, or cause to be paid . . . money or other valuable thing . . . with the intent that it or part thereof shall be used to induce such person to vote or to refrain from voting. (B) Whoever violates this section is guilty of bribery . . . .”); WASH. REV. CODE § 29A.84.620 (“Any person who . . . directly or indirectly offers any bribe, reward, or any thing of value to a voter in exchange for the voter’s vote for or against any person or ballot measure, or authorizes any person to do so, is guilty of a class C felony . . . .”). Nos. 11-5291/ 5308/ 5311/ 5312/ 5313/ United States v. Adams et al. Page 10 5336/ 5337/ 5366 penal prohibitions, and by providing enhanced sanctions and new remedies to deal with the unlawful activities of those engaged in organized crime.” United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 587, 589 (1981) (quotation marks and citation omitted). Reading 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(A) to encompass vote buying comports with this mandate. In conclusion, vote buying in violation of Kentucky Revised Statute § 119.205 is the type of activity that is generally known or characterized as involving bribery. Defendants do little to rebut the fact that vote buying is generally understood as an offense involving bribery; instead, defendants assert that vote buying in violation of Kentucky Revised Statute § 119.205 cannot serve as a predicate offense because of the structure of 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1). As noted earlier, subsection (A) lists state offenses that constitute “racketeering activity” by “generic designation,” and subsection (B) lists federal offenses that constitute “racketeering activity” by “specific reference.” H.R. Rep. No. 91-1549, at 56 (1970). Although two bribery statutes, 18 U.S.C. §§ 201 and 224, are listed among the specific federal offenses in 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(B), two federal vote-buying statutes, 18 U.S.C. § 597 and 42 U.S.C. § 1973i, are not listed in subsection (B). Defendants note that Kentucky’s vote-buying statute, Kentucky Revised Statute § 119.205, is virtually identical to one of the omitted federal vote-buying statutes, 18 U.S.C. § 597.6 According to defendants, the omission of vote buying in violation of § 597 as a predicate act for RICO means that the nearly identical Kentucky Revised Statute § 119.205 cannot serve as a predicate act for RICO. Defendants claim that Congress could not have intended to include vote buying when it occurs in a state election but not a federal election. Therefore, defendants argue that the absence of the federal vote-buying statutes from 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(B) makes the statute clear: defendants assert that vote buying is not “racketeering activity” under RICO. Although defendants’ structural argument has some appeal, it rests on the false notion that subsections (A) and 6 “Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate . . . Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” 18 U.S.C. § 597. Nos. 11-5291/ 5308/ 5311/ 5312/ 5313/ United States v. Adams et al. Page 11 5336/ 5337/ 5366 (B) are coextensive in scope. We have never imposed such a limitation on the scope of predicate acts under § 1961(1)(A) and decline to do so now. In United States v. Licavoli, we held that both murder and conspiracy to commit murder in violation of Ohio law constitute “racketeering activity” because both involve murder under § 1961(1)(A).7 725 F.2d 1040, 1044–47 (6th Cir. 1984). In doing so, this court implicitly rejected a coextensive reading of § 1961(1)(A) and (B). Subsection (B) lists only one predicate federal offense involving murder: 18 U.S.C. § 1958 (“relating to use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire”). If § 1961(1)(A) and (B) are coextensive in scope, murder and conspiracy to commit murder could not be state predicate offenses for the purpose of RICO because neither necessarily involves murder-for-hire. See OHIO REV. CODE ANN. § 2903.02; see also id. § 2923.01(A). We rejected this reading of 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1) in Licavoli and declined to limit the scope of RICO predicates because 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(A) contains “expansive” language—any act or threat involving—and “‘should be liberally construed to effectuate [RICO’s] remedial purposes.’” Licavoli, 725 F.2d at 1045 (quoting Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, Pub. L. No. 91-452, § 904(a), 84 Stat. 922, 947). Given Licavoli’s holding and reasoning, we need not read § 1961(1)(A) and (B) as coextensive in the present case. We must, instead, construe § 1961(1) to effectuate RICO’s purpose. As noted earlier, vote buying in violation of Kentucky Revised Statute § 119.205 is an offense generally known or characterized as involving bribery. This reading of 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(A) effectuates RICO’s remedial purpose. Finding no ambiguity in the 18 U.S.C. 1961(1), we hold that the district court did not err in determining that defendants’ RICO convictions rest on a valid predicate act.8 7 “‘[R]acketeering activity’ means (A) any act or threat involving murder . . . , which is chargeable under State law and punishable by imprisonment for more than one year.” 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(A). 8 Defendants insist that this court apply the rule of lenity in construing 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1). We have no occasion to do so because the rule “only serves as an aid for resolving an ambiguity; it is not to be used to beget one.” Callanan v. United States, 364 U.S. 587, 596 (1961). Thus, the rule of lenity “comes into operation at the end of the process of construing what Congress has expressed, not at the beginning as an overriding consideration of being lenient to wrongdoers.” Id. Where there is no ambiguity, as is the case here, “the rule of lenity does not come into play.” Turkette, 452 U.S. at 587 n.10. For similar reasons, United States v. Turner is not controlling in the case at hand. 465 F.3d 667, 683 (6th Nos. 11-5291/ 5308/ 5311/ 5312/ 5313/ United States v. Adams et al. Page 12 5336/ 5337/ 5366