The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) was passed in 1970. Its initial purpose was to combat organized crime in the United States. For example, the various “families” and other organized groups from New York to Los Angeles that…
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
Criminal Jurisdiction:
A Criminal Law Blog from a Defense Perspective
2017
Category: Drug Distribution | Drug Trafficking
The Department of Justice has finite resources.
Beginning in 2013 and continuing through 2016, the DOJ adhered to its Smart on Crime Initiative designed to focus prosecution in drug cases on high-level traffickers. The stated goal of this prosecution…
2017
Category: Corruption | Criminal Justice Reform | Drug Trafficking
Last year the federal government seized through its asset forfeiture laws $1,921,273,552.00 from both convicted and suspected criminal wrongdoers–$97,831.788.00 of which came from Texas.
DOJ to Expand Prosecutions, Asset Forfeiture
In a July 17, 2017 speech before the…
2017
Category: Fraud | White Collar Crime
Edwin Sutherland, an American sociologist, argued that criminal behavior is a result of normal learning through social interaction based on your peer group. He was later credited with coining the term “white collar crime” to describe “a crime committed…
2017
Category: Drug Smuggling | Drug Trafficking
The Government can proceed against an individual in two ways: either against the individual “personally” known as “in personam” or against their property known as “in rem.”
The latter is known as civil forfeiture.
During the first two…
2017
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Sexual Assault
Two Mississippi men, Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, were wrongfully convicted of murdering two three-year-old girls in separate crimes in the 1990s.
Levon Brooks Convicted of Murder, Life in Prison
Brooks’ ordeal began in September 1990 when three-year-old…
2017
Category: Prosecutorial Misconduct
As of July 3, 2017, the National Registry of Exonerations (“Registry”) reports there have been 2,056 exonerations of criminal defendants in this country since 1989.
166 Exonerations in 2016
This past March, the Registry released its findings of…
2017
Category: Hate Crime
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recently voiced renewed intent to crack down on hate crimes. Why the focus on these types of offenses?
According to a report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, approximately 250,000 hate crimes occurred…
2017
Category: Drug Trafficking | Prosecutorial Misconduct
On June 26, 2017, the Boston Globe carried a report about a Springfield, Massachusetts judge who vacated several drug convictions because of misconduct by two former state prosecutors involved in the drug cases.
Judge Richard J. Carey of Hampden…
2017
Category: Drug Crime | Marijuana
President Ronald Reagan’s “war on drugs” failed as miserably as President Richard Nixon’s “war on crime.” The only measurement of success for either effort was to pack the nation’s prison system with young and non-violent offenders of color and low…