Court Opinion

ID: 9465982
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:02:00.667234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:28.777109
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Because I believe that the Madison City Police Department is not an “enterprise” within the meaning of Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (“Act”), I must dissent. Even if this were not the case, I also believe that the wholesale introduction of the Madison County evidence was so prejudicial as to require reversal and a new trial.
I
In determining that a police department is an enterprise, my Brothers place great reliance on broad language extracted from Title IX and its statement of findings and purposes, while ignoring narrower language found in the legislative history and in the statute itself. From such expansive phrases as “subvert and corrupt our democratic processes” and “general welfare of the nation” the majority concludes that “Congress intended to frame a widely encompassing enactment . . .” which includes governmental entities in the definition of “enterprise.” 1 In view of the majority’s interpretation it seems odd that out of 2097 pages of hearings, two congressional reports, and Title IX itself, there are no explicit references to governmental units as “enterprises” within Title IX. The more reasonable interpretation is that Congress did not intend the term “enterprise” to encompass government organizations.
Careful reading of the legislative history leads to no other conclusion. It is replete with references to the paramount purpose of Title IX: purging racketeering influences from the commercial life of the Nation.2 In the introduction to the Senate hearings on the Act, Senator John McClellan, the bill’s principal sponsor, stated that “[O]rganized crime’s most recent venture is the infiltration of legitimate business and unions.” Senate Hearings: Organized Crime, supra, at p. 2 (emphasis added). Further on, then Assistant Attorney General Will R. Wilson made it clear that Title IX was “. . . designed to attack the infiltration of legitimate business by organized crime.” Id. at 387 (emphasis added). The Hearings of the House of Representatives are filled with similar comments. Senator *691McClellan again testified that Title IX “. . .is designed to prevent organized criminals from infiltrating legitimate commercial organizations.”3 House Hearings: Organized Crime, supra, at p. 106 (emphasis added). These numerous references to business organizations and unions demonstrate that Congress was concerned with organized crime’s infiltration of commercial entities, not of governmental agencies.
The legislative history also makes it clear that the single most important reason for the enactment of Title IX was the remedies it embodied. In the Senate Hearings, Assistant Attorney General Wilson stated that:
While many violations of subsections (b) and (c) of section 1962 may also constitute by their very nature violations of the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, . . . the great advantage of these provisions is that proof of criminal violation inflicts a heavy penalty of financial loss by means of the forfeiture provisions of section 1963.
Senate Hearings: Organized Crime, supra, at p. 388. Indeed, the statement of findings and purpose of the Act indicated that “. . . the purpose of this Act [is to] seek the eradication of organized crime . by providing enhanced sanctions and new remedies . . . .” Pub.L.No. 91-452, § 1, 84 Stat. 922. The Senate Report discussed these remedies at greater length. It disclosed the inadequacy of the present sanctions and the need for new remedies which would divest organized criminals of illegal or illegally obtained commercial interests. The report concluded:
Title IX represents the committee’s careful efforts to fashion new remedies to deal with the infiltration of organized crime into legitimate organizations operating in interstate commerce.
Senate Report: Organized Crime Control Act, supra, at p. 83. The remedies provided by Title IX include the criminal sanction of forfeiture of any interest in the “enterprise” (section 1963) and the civil sanctions of divestiture, restriction of activities, and dissolution or reorganization of the “enterprise” (section 1964). These remedies cannot be applied to a public entity such as a police department. Police officers have no property interest in a police department which can be forfeited and, of course, a police department cannot be “dissolved.” The primacy of the remedial provisions of Title IX and the total inapplicability of the provisions to governmental entities corroborate what the legislative history demonstrates: Congress had no intention of including governmental units within the ambit of the “enterprise” provisions of Title IX.
Additionally, the majority ignores two canons of statutory interpretation in reaching its conclusion that a police department can be an enterprise under Title IX. The first of these is the doctrine of ejusdem generis which “. . . warns against expansively interpreting broad language which immediately follows narrow and specific terms.” United States v. Insco, 496 F.2d 204, 206 (5th Cir. 1976); United States v. Altese, 542 F.2d 104, 107 (2d Cir. 1976) (Van Graafeiland, J., dissenting). “[T]his maxim counsels courts to construe the broad in light of the narrow.” United States v. Baranski, 484 F.2d 556, 566 (7th Cir. 1973). In this case the broad phrases used by the majority, e. g., “any legal entity” and “[any] group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity,” are preceded by narrower terms such as “legitimate business,” “labor unions,” “partnership,” and “corporation.” See statement of findings and purpose (3), supra, and 18 U.S.C. § 1641(4). These specific, narrow terms used in Title IX are a “listing of the common legal forms in which business entities and labor groups fashion themselves to carry out their private function.” United States v. Mandel, 415 F.Supp. 997, 1021 (D.C.Md.1976). The broad phrases used by *692the majority to define “enterprise” must be construed to be limited to the same type and class of entities described by the narrower terms. A police department would not fall within the confines of this properly construed definition of enterprise.
The majority’s second error of statutory interpretation is basing its holding regarding a provision which establishes criminal liability on Congress’ instruction that the provisions of the Act be “liberally construed” to achieve “their remedial purpose.” Supra, at p. 686. It is unclear whether Congress intended its directive to apply to those sections which establish criminal liability or merely to the “remedial” provisions of Title IX. By applying this directive to the criminal liability provisions, the majority has violated the due process principle that “statutes creating crimes are to be strictly construed . . . .” United States v. Resnick, 299 U.S. 207,209, 57 S.Ct. 126, 127, 81 L.Ed. 127 (1936). See also Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 263, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952); Smith v. United States, 360 U.S. 1, 9, 79 S.Ct. 991, 3 L.Ed.2d 1041 (1959). See generally Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 162, 92 S.Ct. 839, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1971); Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108 n. 3, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972); Tribe, American Constitutional Law, 718-19 (1978).
In sum, nothing in the legislative history indicates that Congress intended governmental units to be included in Title IX. This conclusion is supported by the doctrine of ejusdem generis, the clear mandate of the Supreme Court to narrowly interpret criminal statutes and the fact that Title IX’s remedies are peculiar to commercial entities.4
II
I also disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the Madison County (“County”) evidence was properly admitted pursuant to Fed.R.Evid. 404(b).5 The quantum of the evidence and the fact that two defendants had no involvement with it render it so prejudicial as to outweigh any probative value it might have had. Further, when this evidence was admitted, it was improperly introduced.
The majority chooses to characterize the volume of this evidence as a “significant amount”; in fact, it is an overwhelming amount. The County evidence consumed virtually all of the first three days of the trial.6 The Government’s direct and redirect presentation of the County evidence consumed 223 pages and involved fifteen witnesses. The direct and redirect presentation of the City evidence consumed only 151 transcript pages. Further all or part of Government Exhibits 1, 1A, IB, 3, 4, 5, 34, 36, and 38 could be classified as County evidence. More than half of the evidence presented by the Government was County evidence; yet, according to the majority, all of this was necessary to show “the planned design and modus operandi of appellant Grzywacz.” Supra, at p. 688.
I do not dispute that evidence of similar acts of prior misconduct may be used to show opportunity, preparation, plan, etc. Fed.R.Evid. 404(b). But evidence of this *693sort is not admissible unless its probative value outweighs its prejudicial effect. Weidman, supra, 572 F.2d at 1202-03. Weighing the probative value of the evidence against its prejudicial effect leads me to the conclusion that the County evidence should not have been admitted. Arguably its probative value is, as the majority stated, its utility in showing design and mode of operation of one of the three defendants.7 But there can be little doubt about the potential prejudicial impact of the evidence. Little demonstration is needed to conclude that three days of County evidence would distract the jury’s attention from the real issues in this case. Presented at the very beginning of the trial, the County evidence could serve only to create an aura of guilt against all three defendants before the jury had heard any evidence on the crime for which they actually were indicted.
This distracting evidence was prejudicial in its volume alone. The trial court should have “limit[ed] the evidence to the quantity that [was] necessary to the purpose for which it [was] admitted.” United States v. Ostrowsky, 501 F.2d 318, 323 (7th Cir. 1974). Three days of evidence were not necessary to demonstrate Grzywacz’ mode of operation and plan, especially where the evidence was unrelated to the indictment and was likely to create a bias against the defendants in the minds of the jurors. Further “[i]t is generally recognized that there can be no complete assurance that the jury even under the best of instructions will strictly confine the use of this kind of evidence to the issue of [planned design and modus operandi] and wholly put out of their minds the implication that the accused, having committed the prior similar criminal act, probably committed the one with which he is actually charged.” United States v. Byrd, 352 F.2d 570, 574 (2d Cir. 1965).
The strongest reason for excluding the evidence, however, was its potential prejudicial effect on Goclan and Krieshok. Although the jury was admonished not to consider the evidence against them, it is unlikely that this instruction was effective in removing the prejudice since the City of Madison evidence, in conjunction with the joint trial of all three defendants, tended to establish a link between Grzywacz and Go-clan and Krieshok. The power of guilt by association is not easy to dispel; the jury may well have credited Goclan and Krieshok with the acts of Grzywacz. I fail to see how this dangerous risk is outweighed by the need for showing one defendant’s modus operandi.
The County evidence also was introduced improperly; no contemporaneous limiting instructions were given by the court. See generally Lutwak v. United States, 344 U.S. 604, 73 S.Ct. 481, 97 L.Ed. 593 (1953). The majority determined that this argument was meritless because the appellants did not request such an instruction. This brief dismissal of appellants’ contention hardly seems fair given that the Government introduced the County evidence under a rationale entirely distinct from the theory upon which its admissibility finally was weighed. When the County evidence initially was presented, the Government insisted that it pertained to an overall substantive conspiracy. Only after all the evidence had been presented did the Government confess that the County evidence was not related to the conspiracy. Faced with a motion for mistrial, the Government tendered for the first time its theory that the evidence was admissible to show plan, design, etc.
*694It appears as if the procedure employed by the Government was a pretext designed to gain the admission of the County evidence; the prosecution must have known there was insufficient evidence to connect the County evidence to the City conspiracy. In conference the Government stated that “there was at least an inference that could be drawn that [the County evidence] was part of the conspiracy.” (Tr. p. 890.) Without any fact tying the County evidence to the conspiracy this inference is not permissible. Unfortunately, it is not unlikely that this inference took shape behind the closed doors of the jury room.
Because of the manner in which the County evidence was introduced, the volume in which it was received and the fact that it was hardly probative and highly prejudicial, I believe that the admission of the evidence was erroneous, and separately warrants reversal.

. Several of the broad phrases which the majority opinion depends on are taken from the Statement of Findings and Purposes, Pub.L. 91-452, § 1, 84 Stat. 922, and are in reference to all eleven titles of the Organized Crime Control Act. Such a broad introductory statement should not be used as authority for interpreting one specific definition within one of the eleven titles when much more relevant legislative history is available.

. Measures Relating to Organized Crime: Hearings on S.30, et a 1. Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures, 81st Cong., 1st Sess. (1969); Organized Crime Control: Hearings on S.30 Before the Subcommittee No. 5 of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. (1970); S.Rep.No. 91-617, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. (1969); H.R.Rep.No. 91-1459, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. (1970), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1970, p. 4007.

. This same assertion also can be found on pages 170, 327, 384, 433, 499, 579, and 687 of the Semite Hearings: Organized Crime, supra.

. The majority relies on United States v. Brown, 555 F.2d 407 (5th Cir. 1977); and United States v. Frumento, 563 F.2d 1083 (3d Cir. 1977), cert. denied sub nom. Miilhouse v. United States, 434 U.S. 1072, 98 S.Ct. 1256, 55 L.Ed.2d 775 (1978). With all due respect to the Third and Fifth Circuits, I believe these opinions are incorrect for the reasons outlined above.

. Fed.R.Evid. 404(b), states:
Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident.
This evidence is not admissible unless its probative value outweighs its prejudicial effect. United States v. Weidman, 572 F.2d 1199 (7th Cir. 1978).

. The total length of the trial transcript is 1040 pages. At the end of the third day the transcript ran to 505 pages. All but 35 pages of the evidence presented by the Government during the first three days was County evidence.

. The elements of a conspiracy offense are: (1) an agreement by two or more persons to combine efforts for an illegal purpose and (2) an overt act in furtherance of the agreement. Nelson v. United States, 415 F.2d 483 (5th Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 1060, 90 S.Ct. 751, 24 L.Ed.2d 254 (1970). The Government concedes that the County evidence is not related to the conspiracy and was in no way connected to two of the three defendants; it is not evidence of an agreement nor does it constitute an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. It is evidence of actions by one of the defendants which is only indirectly relevant in proving the overt act. Thus its probative value is minimal and when probative value is weighed against prejudicial effect as required by Weidman, supra, 572 F.2d at 1202-03, the limited relevancy of the County evidence could hardly tip the scales in favor of admitting the evidence.