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Notre Dame Law Review Volume 88 | Issue 4 Article 1 4-1-2013 Time-Bars: Rico-Criminal and Civil Federal and State G. Robert Blakey University of Notre Dame, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr Part of the Criminal Law Commons, and the RICO Commons Recommended Citation G. R. Blakey, Time-Bars: Rico-Criminal and Civil Federal and State, 88 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1581 (2013). Available at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol88/iss4/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Law Review by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. \\jciprod01\productn\N\NDL\88-4\NDL401.txt unknown Seq: 1 22-MAY-13 9:20 ARTICLES TIME-BARS: RICO-CRIMINAL AND CIVIL-FEDERAL AND STATE G. Robert Blakey* 2013 G. Robert Blakey. Individuals and nonprofit institutions may reproduce and distribute copies of this Article in any format at or below cost, for educational purposes, so long as each copy identifies the author, provides a citation to the Notre Dame Law Review, and includes this provision in the copyright notice. * William J. and Dorothy K. Professor of Law Emeritus, Notre Dame Law School; A.B. 1957, University of Notre Dame; J.D. 1960, Notre Dame Law School. Professor Blakey was the Chief Counsel of the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures of the United States Senate in 1969–1970 when Congress processed the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, Pub. L. No. 91-452, 84 Stat. 922 (1970). Compare Kosak v. United States, 465 U.S. 848, 856–57 & n.13 (1984) (Marshall, J.) (“[I]t is significant that the apparent draftsman of the crucial portion [of the statute so construed it, and] it seems to us senseless to ignore entirely the views of its draftsman.”), with Banque Worms v. Luis A. Duque Pena E Hijos, Ltda, 652 F. Supp. 770, 772 n.4 (S.D.N.Y. 1986) (Goettel, J.) (“The rather broad draftsmanship of RICO has resulted in its expansive application. A professor who served as a draftsman for the bill has stated that this broad application is what he intended. There is no indication, however, that the Congress which passed the bill was adopting his intentions.” (citation omitted)). Courts are not so reluctant to accept the writings of other professor-draftsmen. See, e.g., Sanders v. John Nuveen & Co., 619 F.2d 1222, 1226 (7th Cir. 1980); Woolf v. S.D. Cohn & Co., 515 F.2d 591, 605 n.6 (5th Cir. 1975), vacated, 426 U.S. 944 (1976); Vohs v. Dickson, 495 F.2d 607, 619 n.3 (5th Cir. 1974); Lanza v. Drexel & Co., 479 F.2d 1277, 1296 n.52 (2d Cir. 1973); Klein v. Computer Devices, Inc., 591 F. Supp. 270, 277 (S.D.N.Y. 1984) (Goettel, J.); S.E.C. v. Lowe, 556 F. Supp. 1359, 1363 (E.D.N.Y. 1983), rev’d, 725 F.2d 892 (2d Cir. 1984), rev’d, 472 U.S. 181 (1985); In re N.Y.C. Mun. Sec. Litig., 507 F. Supp. 169, 175 (S.D.N.Y. 1980) (citing James M. Landis, The Legislative History of the Securities Act of 1933, 28 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 29 (1959)). The difference may lie, not so much in the source of the opinion, but in its content; it ought to rest on the character of the reasons supporting the opinion (or not). This is the point at which an author must acknowledge the assistance he or she has received from his or her students and others. In this instance, my job is more complicated than the usual simple expression of appreciation. In 1979, I was a professor of law and the director of the Cornell Institute on Organized Crime, which in the summer of 1979 prepared a set of volumes on RICO. I asked Mark Flanagan 1581 \\jciprod01\productn\N\NDL\88-4\NDL401.txt unknown Seq: 2 22-MAY-13 9:20 1582 notre dame law review [vol. 88:4 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .................................................. 1584 R I. RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS ACT (RICO) .................................................. 1591 R A. Enactment of RICO .................................... 1591 R B. Organized Crime Myth ................................. 1594 R C. Criminal and Civil Proceedings ......................... 1596 R D. Liberal Construction ................................... 1598 R E. Criminal Enforcement .................................. 1599 R F. Civil Enforcement ...................................... 1604 R G. Key Elements of RICO .................................. 1605 R II. STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS IN CRIMINAL RICO CASES ....... 1616 R A. History and Justifications ............................... 1616 R B. Determining the Limitations Period for Criminal RICO ..... 1635 R 1. Federal RICO .................................... 1635 R 2. State RICO ...................................... 1638 R C. Determining the Point of Accrual ........................ 1639 R 1. Accrual and Commencement of Prosecution in Criminal Cases ................................... 1639 R 2. Accrual Problems in Criminal RICO Cases ........ 1643 R (Virginia, 1981), one of the students working for the Institute, to prepare a draft of an essay on RICO and the statute of limitations. He soon returned and explained the topic was too large for one person. Eventually, I asked Michael S. Smith (Cornell 1981) and Bryan E. Pastuszenski (Cornell 1981) to help Mark; it resulted in the publication by them of The Statute of Limitation in a Civil RICO Suit for Treble Damages, in 1 CORNELL INSTITUTE ON ORGANIZED CRIME: MATERIALS ON RICO 974 (G. Robert Blakey ed., 1980) [hereinafter MATERIALS]. In turn, Bryan interested the law review in the topic, and it asked Mitchell A. Lowenthal (Cornell 1981) and Mark E. Greenwald (Cornell 1981) to work with him on the topic; their joint effort resulted in the publication of Special Project, Time Bars in Specialized Federal Common Law: Federal Rights of Action and State Statute of Limitations, 65 CORNELL L. REV. 1011 (1980) [hereinafter Cornell Limitations Project], an unprecedented ninety-four-page student essay, an essay well worth studying on the topic. See infra note 150 for my use of the Special Project. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Kevin W. Goering (Cornell 1981) for his insightful and enlightening The Character of Treble Damages: Conflict Between a Hybrid Mode of Recovery and Jurisprudence of Labels, in MATERIALS, supra, at 428. Cornell professor, colleague, and enduring friend, Kevin M. Clermont, the current Robert D. Ziff Professor of Law, also helped me that summer. He continued to guide me afterwards, unselfishly with his time, in my efforts to get my mind around these issues. Since then, I have also been ably assisted by, in particular, Carli McNeill (Notre Dame 2011) and in cite checking, Shepardizing, and finding obscure references, by Monica Bordas (Notre Dame 2012), William McClintock (Notre Dame 2014), Kevin Murphy (Notre Dame 2014), Grace Fox (Notre Dame 2014), and the staff of the Notre Dame Law School library, especially Patti Ogden. To each of them, I owe more than I can ever repay. \\jciprod01\productn\N\NDL\88-4\NDL401.txt unknown Seq: 3 22-MAY-13 9:20 2013] rico time-bars 1583 a. Pattern Violations ............................ 1643 R b. Use/Investment Violations and Acquisition/ Maintenance Violations ...................... 1650 R c. Conspiracy ................................... 1652 R D. Tolling of Criminal Statutes of Limitations ............... 1654 R 1. Federal Tolling Rules ............................ 1654 R 2. State Tolling Rules ............................... 1660 R III. STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS IN CIVIL RICO CASES ........... 1663 R A. History and Justifications ............................... 1663 R B. Determining the Limitations Period for Civil RICO ........ 1667 R 1. Federal RICO .................................... 1667 R a. Before Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Asssociates, Inc. ............................... 1667 R b. Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc. .......................................... 1680 R 2. State RICO ...................................... 1685 R a. When an Express Limitations Period Exists . 1685 R b. When an Express Limitations Period Does Not Exist ......................................... 1686 R i. Borrowing the Federal Period ............ 1687 R ii. Borrowing the State Antitrust Period ..... 1691 R iii. Borrowing the Limitations Period Based on the Alleged Predicate Offenses ........... 1693 R iv. Borrowing the Limitations Period for Penalties and Forfeitures ................. 1694 R v. Borrowing the Limitations Period for Liability on a Statute ..................... 1698 R C. Determining the Point of Accrual ........................ 1700 R 1. The Last Predicate Act Rule and Klehr v. A. O. Smith Corp........................................ 1702 R 2. The Clayton Act Rule ............................ 1707 R 3. The Injury and Pattern Discovery Rule and Rotella v. Wood .......................................... 1711 R 4. Discovery Rule ................................... 1718 R D. Tolling of Civil Statutes of Limitations ................... 1730 R 1. Tolling .......................................... 1730 R 2. Laches ........................................... 1754 R E. Case Study: Time-bars in Florida Under RICO ............ 1759 R CONCLUSION .................................................... 1779 R \\jciprod01\productn\N\NDL\88-4\NDL401.txt unknown Seq: 4 22-MAY-13 9:20 1584 notre dame law review [vol. 88:4 “There is an appointed time for everything.”1 “Ripeness is all.”2 “Statutes of limitations always have vexed the philosophical mind for it is difficult to fit them into