Court Opinion

ID: 9468410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:14:15.965476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:51.598863
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result:
I am unable to agree with the portion of Judge Kearse’s excellent opinion that holds the New York Civil Court to be an “enterprise” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(b). No one would think of describing a court as an “enterprise” as a matter of ordinary English speech. Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th Ed. defines enterprise as: “A venture or undertaking especially one involving financial commitment.” The only pertinent definition in the Random House Dictionary of the English Language is “a company organized for commercial purposes; business firm.” Definitions in other dictionaries I have consulted are even less *43pertinent. The problem here is totally different from that in United States v. Turkette, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 2524, 69 L.Ed.2d 246 (1981), where the Supreme Court criticized the First Circuit for reading the word “legitimate” into Congress’ definition of “enterprise”. The issue in Turkette was whether there was any justification for excluding from the term “enterprise” an association that would normally be deemed to come within it. The question here is whether there is any justification for expanding the term to include something that would normally be deemed to fall outside it. Conceivably the group of marshals who engaged in the sordid activities described by the majority could be deemed an “enterprise”. But that was not what the indictment charged or what the jury was told it must find in order to convict. It is of no consequence, as the majority urges, that obstruction of law enforcement is included in the definition of “racketeering activity” in § 1961(1). As the Court said in Turkette, supra,-U.S. at-, 101 S.Ct. at 2528:
The “enterprise” is not “the pattern of racketeering activity”; it is an entity separate and apart from the pattern of activity in which it engages. The existence of an enterprise at all time remains a separate element which must be proved by the Government.
For these reasons, as well as others expressed by Judge Swygert dissenting in United States v. Grzywacz, 603 F.2d 682, 690 (7 Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 935, 100 S.Ct. 2152, 64 L.Ed.2d 788 (1980), I would vacate the convictions under RICO, 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) and (d), but would allow those under the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, and the mail fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1341, to stand.
I must also express concern over so much of the discussion of F.R.E. 404(b), as relates to participation of the defendants in similar transactions which were not a part of the conspiracy.1 I could not at all agree that proof that one of the defendants had performed other acts of the precise nature of those, here charged during much the same time frame would be “logically so weak that the relevance of the factual evidence will nearly always be outweighed by the probable prejudice resulting from its admission.” Opinion, p. 40. The crimes here charged were sufficiently unusual that such evidence would have been highly relevant as proof of design or system under Rule 404(b), see 2 Wigmore, Evidence, § 304 at 249 (Chadbourn rev. 1979) — “such a concurrence of common features that the various acts are naturally to be explained as caused by a general plan of which they are the individual manifestations.” McCormick also approves the use of evidence of other crimes by the accused “so nearly identical in method as to earmark them as the handiwork of the accused” — a device “so unusual and distinctive as to be like a signature”, Evidence, § 190 at 449 and cases cited (Cleary ed. 1972). Judge Weinstein’s Treatise on the Federal Rules of Evidence agrees that Rule 404(b) permits proof of prior crimes by the accused “when details of the crime show an individuality that, if repeated, are highly probative of the conclusion that they were committed by the same person.” 2 Evidence 1404.16 at 404-92-93 and cases cited in notes 21 and 22 (1980). Indeed, the Wright & Graham treatise cited by the majority seems to acquiesce in this view. See 22 Wright & Graham, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 5244 at 501 (1978). While it would have been appropriate for the judge to explain the limited basis for which the evidence was admitted, he was not bound to do so, at least in the absence of a request. See 2 Weinstein, supra, H 404.19 at 404-117-119.

. As to acts which were a part of the conspiracy, I agree that Rule 404(b) has no application since these would not be “other crimes”. Since it is not at all clear that the evidence of custom and practice did include any act of defendants that were not a part of the conspiracy, this portion of the opinion may well be unnecessary dictum.