U.S. v. Thompson, s. 81-5176

• Decision Date: 08 February 1982
• Docket Number: 81-5490 and 81-5495,Nos. 81-5176,s. 81-5176
• Citation: 669 F.2d 1143
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William Aubrey THOMPSON, Thomas Edward Sisk, Charles Frederick Taylor, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 1143

669 F.2d 1143

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William Aubrey THOMPSON, Thomas Edward Sisk, Charles Frederick Taylor, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 81-5176, 81-5490 and 81-5495.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued Oct. 23, 1981.

Decided Feb. 8, 1982.

Henry A. Martin, Haile & Martin, W. Gary Blackburn, Robert C. Watson, Nashville, Tenn., court appointed, for defendants-appellants.

Joe B. Brown, U. S. Atty., William M. Cohen, Asst. U. S. Atty., Nashville, Tenn., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before LIVELY and JONES, Circuit Judges, and PECK, Senior Circuit Judge.

JOHN W. PECK, Senior Circuit Judge.

The defendants-appellants, through motions in arrest of judgment following guilty pleas, raise the issue whether the office of the Governor of the State of Tennessee may be an "enterprise" under Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 922 (1970). This Title, one of twelve within the Act, is commonly known by the acronym RICO, from the chapter heading "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations." 18 U.S.C. ch. 96.

The pertinent facts are as follows. Each of the appellants was connected in the mid-to-late 1970's with the office of the Governor of Tennessee. In an indictment alleging that that office "was an 'enterprise' as defined by Title 18, United States Code, Section 1961(4)," the appellants were charged with violating RICO by "selling" executive clemency and immunity from extradition through the governor's office. ¹

The appellants argue that Congress did not intend the application of RICO to such enterprises, or that if Congress did so intend, then RICO is unconstitutional. As will become clear from this opinion, it is unnecessary for us to reach the constitutional question posed by the appellants.

INTERPRETING RICO

A. RICO's "Plain Language."

The meaning of the term "enterprise" within RICO has been often and hotly litigated. The Supreme Court has recently laid to rest the dispute whether wholly illegitimate concerns can be RICO enterprises. They can. United States v. Turkette, --- U.S. ----, ----, 101 S.Ct. 2524, 2527-34, 69 L.Ed.2d 246 (1981).

We follow the method of interpreting statutes laid down in Turkette. In that case, the Court looked first to the statutory definition of "enterprise." See --- U.S. at ----, 101 S.Ct. at 2527. The statutory definition is on its face clear and broad. " '(E)nterprise' includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity ...." 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4). The Court noted that this language is unambiguous in including legitimate as well as illegitimate enterprises. The statutory language itself was therefore regarded as conclusive. See --- U.S. at ----, 101 S.Ct. at 2527. Accord, United States v. Sutton, 642 F.2d 1001, 1006 (6th Cir. 1980) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 101 S.Ct. 3144, 69 L.Ed.2d 995 (1981). The Court in Turkette recognized, however, that "there is no errorless test for identifying or recognizing 'plain' or 'unambiguous' language," and that in construing statutes "absurd results are to be avoided and internal inconsistencies in the statute must be dealt with." --- U.S. at ----, 101 S.Ct. at 2527. See also Trans Alaska Pipeline Rate Cases, 436 U.S. 631, 643, 98 S.Ct. 2053, 2061, 56 L.Ed.2d 591 (1978); Commissioner v. Brown, 380 U.S. 563, 571, 85 S.Ct. 1162, 1166, 14 L.Ed.2d 75 (1965). In short, courts in construing statutes must look beyond the statutes' words not only if the words themselves are unclear, but also if a discrete statutory provision is anomalous in effect. It is, therefore, "fundamental that a section of a statute should not be read in isolation from the context of the whole Act, and that in fulfilling our responsibility in interpreting legislation, we must not be guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but (should) look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy." Richards v. United States, 369 U.S. 1, 11, 82 S.Ct. 585, 591, 7 L.Ed.2d 492 (1962).

Application of RICO's civil remedies to state government enterprises would result in anomalous results: district courts would not only be authorized to "prohibit any person from engaging in the same type of endeavor as the enterprise engaged in ...," but also to order "dissolution or reorganization of any enterprise ...." 18 U.S.C. § 1964(a) (emphasis added). To hold that Congress has authorized federal district courts to dissolve or reorganize the offices of the governors of the states, and that it did so sub silentio, ² is shocking and absurd.

Although the Court in Turkette stated that "(e)ven if one or more of the civil remedies (in RICO) might be inapplicable to a particular illegitimate enterprise, this fact would not serve to limit the enterprise concept," --- U.S. at ----, 101 S.Ct. at 2530, that remark must be read in proper context. Given the patent concern with organized crime's economic power that engendered RICO's enactment, application of that statute to wholly illegitimate, as well as legitimate enterprises, was a fortiori. Such application yields no startling results. In these appeals we are not presented, as was the Supreme Court in Turkette, with cases in which various of RICO's civil remedies would be merely impracticable. Dissolution or reorganization of a governmental entity would certainly not be impracticable; the question is whether these remedies were placed within district court's authority. If Congress may grant such authority sub silentio, then we have witnessed in our times the destruction of the states as sovereign political entities. Cf. National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 842-52, 96 S.Ct. 2465, 2470-2474, 49 L.Ed.2d 245 (1976) (Commerce Clause does not authorize Congress to force upon the states essential choices regarding conduct of integral government functions.)

B. The Legislative History of the Organized Crime Control Act.

Having decided that the application of RICO to government "enterprises" yields anomalous consequences, we proceed to examine the history of the Organized Crime Control Act to see if the legislature clearly intended these consequences. With the highest degree of certainty by which an historical "fact" can be known, it can be said that Congress did not envision the present application of RICO in passing the Organized Crime Control Act.

In arguing to the contrary, the government points out that Title IX of the Act "shall be liberally construed to effectuate its remedial purposes." Pub.L. 91-452, § 904, reprinted in (1970) U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1073, at 1104. This language has led some courts to what we feel to be erroneous constructions of Title IX, for to determine these "broad remedial purposes" (on which Title IX itself is silent) courts have looked to the stated purposes of the entire Act. ³ The Congressional Statement of Findings and Purpose that precedes the Act reads:

The Congress finds that (1) organized crime in the United States is a highly sophisticated, diversified, and widespread activity that annually drains billions of dollars from America's economy by unlawful conduct and the illegal use of force, fraud, and corruption; (2) organized crime derives a major portion of its power through money obtained from such illegal endeavors as syndicated gambling, loan sharking, the theft and fencing of property, the importation and distribution of narcotics and other dangerous drugs, and other forms of social exploitation; (3) this money and power are increasingly used to infiltrate and corrupt legitimate business and labor unions and to subvert and corrupt our democratic processes ; (4) organized crime activities in the United States weaken the stability of the Nation's economic system, harm innocent investors and competing organizations, interfere with free competition, seriously burden interstate and foreign commerce, threaten the domestic security, and undermine the general welfare of the Nation and its citizens ; and (5) organized crime continues to grow because of defects in the evidence-gathering process of the law inhibiting the development of the legally admissible evidence necessary to bring criminal and other sanctions or remedies to bear on the unlawful activities of those engaged in organized crime and because the sanctions and remedies available to the Government are unnecessarily limited in scope and impact.

It is the purpose of this Act to seek the eradication of organized crime in the United States by strengthening the legal tools in the evidence-gathering process, by establishing new penal prohibitions, and by providing enhanced sanctions and new remedies to deal with the unlawful activities of those engaged in organized crime.

84 Stat. 922-23 (emphasis added).

The emphasized phrases certainly indicate a Congressional concern over corruption of government by organized crime. See, e.g. United States v. Angelilli, 660 F.2d 23, 32 (2d Cir. 1981). There is, however, no cause to equate the aims of the entire Act with those of one part of it. See United States v. Grzywacz, 603 F.2d 682, 690 n.1 (7th Cir. 1979) (Swygert, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 935, 100 S.Ct. 2152, 64 L.Ed.2d 788 (1980). The Second Circuit, although holding that RICO enterprises included government entities, was obliged to note that "the congressional discussion devoted expressly to Title IX did not state that government entities were to be the beneficiaries of RICO's substantive provisions ...." Angelilli, supra, 660 F.2d at 33. In other words, even though RICO is supposed to be a part of Congress's attack on organized crime's corruption of government, such corruption was never mentioned in the Congressional debate on RICO itself. Rather, corruption of government surfaced most often in the legislature's discussion of Title I of the bill, which provided for the creation of special grand juries...