• jacksilver@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I think RICO is a white collar equivalent to the concept of felony murder, although maybe not a 1-to-1.

    You get a harsher penalty by basically being involved/contributing in a large operation.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      They’re not really equivalent. With RICO if you’ve committed multiple times of crimes from a certain list, and those crimes are related to an “enterprise” you can be charged with racketeering.

      You’re not being charged with crimes someone else did. You’re being charged with masterminding a bunch of crimes. RICO charges are used against people at the head of an organization. Felony Murder is used against people who have the bad luck to be part of a group when someone else in the group pulls the trigger.

      RICO goes after the organization in organized crime. It fills in a gap in the laws that maybe wasn’t there already, because none of the other laws went after the planning and organizing of the crimes. Felony murder seems to just exist to pile additional charges on someone who had already committed crimes that were already on the books, and make that person additionally responsible for the actions of a different person.