Court Opinion

ID: 9465972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:01:50.570306+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:28.669273
License: Public Domain

GODBOLD, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur except on one issue. I would hold that Count One of the indictment is insufficient.
I have read Count One right side up, upside down, and sideways, and I have dissected it and parsed it. I cannot make sense of what it says or divine what it is intended to say. It is not possible to tell whether it charges that defendants were already engaged in an existent enterprise and in the pursuit of it engaged in racketeering activities, or in the pursuit of it conspired to engage in racketeering activities; or, whether they conspired to form an enterprise in which they would engage in racketeering activities; or, engaged in a conspiracy in the conduct of which they conspired to conspire; or, as the majority seem to read the count, they formed an enterprise and simultaneously formed a conspiracy. There are various other possibilities as well. Count One speaks in circles. Its deficiencies are not trivial because they affect both constitutional and statutory limitations of the Organized Crime Control Act. Also, Count One does not even come close to being a “plain, concise and definite statement.” Fed.R.Crim.P. 7.