Court Opinion

ID: 9470656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:12:19.733847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:02.157691
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part.
I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion holding that the defendant Wallace was properly joined under Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(b). I would reverse his conviction and remand for a separate trial.
*885Count I of the indictment here charged both defendants with substantive RICO violations, and with the predicate act of accepting bribes from individuals outside the Sheriff’s department in return for using department vehicles to escort overweight or oversize loads. Sheriff Davis was separately charged in Counts II through IV with extorting money (kickbacks) and labor (on his property) from his departmental employees. The majority holds that the existence of a substantive RICO count in the indictment is enough by itself to bring the various counts of the indictment within the “same series of acts or transactions” and hence to justify joinder of defendant Wallace under Rule 8(b). The rationale seems to be that because all the crimes charged are predicate acts of racketeering involving the same enterprise (the Sheriff’s office) they constitute a “series of acts or transactions” despite the lack of connection between the various acts. I do not agree with such a broad interpretation of either the RICO statute or the joinder provisions of Rule 8(b).
Several courts have allowed prosecutors to use a substantive RICO count to join in one indictment what would otherwise be separate, unjoinable offenses by different individuals. E.g., United States v. Weisman, 624 F.2d 1118 (2d Cir.1980) (inclusion of a substantive RICO count in indictment meets 8(b) requirement that joined' offenses be in the same series of acts or transactions). There is nothing wrong with such joinder where there is a connection between the various acts alleged, or evidence that all the defendants were aware of or agreed to the scope of the racketeering activity undertaken. For example, the joinder of Davis and Wallace for trial on the charge of bribing outsiders for the escort service was clearly proper, since there was a series of ■related acts in which both Davis and Wallace participated. But as the Fifth Circuit pointed out in United States v. Sutherland, 656 F.2d 1181, 1192-3 (1981), discussing RICO conspiracies:
[T]he language of [an earlier case] explains that what ties these conspiracies together is not the mere fact that they involve the same enterprise, but is instead — as in any other conspiracy — an “agreement on an overall objective.” ... [The defendants] were properly tried together under RICO only because the evidence established an agreement to commit a substantive RICO offense, i.e. an agreement to participate in an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity.
In its brief, the Government repeatedly argues that Wallace and Davis agreed to conduct the Sheriff’s office through racketeering activity. Yet there was no conspiracy indictment here, and no proof that Wallace agreed to or participated in any racketeering activities other than the escort bribery scheme. If deputy Wallace had any connection with Davis’ extortion scheme it was as a victim. The fact that both the escort service and Davis’ extortion were accomplished through the Sheriff’s office as an enterprise is not sufficient to create a “series of acts” out of what would otherwise be unrelated offenses.
To further illustrate the problem, suppose the Sheriff’s office as an enterprise uses an employee for purposes of extortion and, unknown to the employee, uses a prisoner for robbery and burglary. The employee should not be joined in a trial for robbery and burglary in such a case even though the overall enterprise, the Sheriff’s office, is the same. Otherwise, government prosecutors could name the state as the enterprise and join for trial disparate and unconnected offenses of employees throughout the state. The Fifth Circuit also highlighted the .problem using itself as an example:
For example, assuming that our own court — the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — was alleged to be the enterprise (as we assume would be proper under our analysis), we question whether an agreement to bribe a court official in El Paso, Texas could be part of the same conspiracy as an unrelated agreement to use a judicial office for illicit profit-making purposes in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when neither the El Paso nor the Fort Lauderdale conspira*886tors knew of the existence of the other group.
United States v. Stratton, 649 F.2d 1066, 1073, n. 8 (5th Cir.1981).
I would hold that absent evidence that a defendant implicitly consented to, participated in, or was connected with the full scope of racketeering activities undertaken in furtherance of the enterprise, joinder of unrelated predicate acts based on a substantive RICO count violates Rule 8(b).