What is the thing called RICO? I'm not a law junkie, but I keep hearing this term, RICO, over and over again in different American TV shows (like Better Call Saul, for instance). So could you please explain to me what it is in simple terms (but in a detailed enough manner still)?
I can do it simple, but the Popehat can lawsplain it better. The crucial part is: It's never RICO! I mean, not literally never. But I can say with a very high level of confidence that if you're asking me, it's not RICO. Ok, now, what is Rico? Well, it's short for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and to use it you need to show a lot of stuff as the RICO jury instructions show. By the way, that is you need to prove all these points list: To recover under § 1962(c), a plaintiff must prove (1) conduct, (2) of an enterprise, (3) through a pattern, (4) of racketeering activity (known as &quot;predicate acts&quot;), (5) causing injury to the plaintiff's &quot;business or property&quot; by the conduct constituting the violation. Judges hate RICO. Some even have pre-written orders to demand whoever brings up RICO to show why they believe it is RICO - and Popehat can show you such a model order.
No, a later trial is not allowed A prosecutor can, and often will charge multiple related crimes, and all will be addressed at the same trial. But once a person has been acquitted on a given set of events, the same jurisdiction cannot re-try the same person on what is often called a lesser included offense. Nor on a greater offense implied by the same events. Not even if additional evidence comes to light. However, if an act (or set of acts) is a crime under both state law and Federal law, for example theft by deception (state crime) and wire fraud (federal crime) one jurisdiction may try the person even after ther has been an acquittal in the other. I think the same rule applies if an act is a crime within the jurisdiction of two different states, that both can trey the accused. In many cases prosecutors will choose not to bring the second trial, but they can if they see fit.
Even before the police have any idea who did it, Bob is guilty of whatever wrong he did. However, if you want this to be a legal question and not a moral one, we should assume that you really want to know "Can Bob be convicted of murder, if the evidence proves that he did do it?". Yes, he can. See Morris v. State, 214 S.W.3d 159. The critical question was whether the defendant understood the charges (he did) and whether he could assist in his defense (he could). The desideratum of being able to assist in your own defense only goes so far. On the other hand, maybe no, per Wilson v. US. A government expert witness "testified that appellant had permanent retrograde amnesia and would not be able to aid in his own defense in terms of remembering any of the acts alleged in the indictment". The crucial difference seems to be whether one just has loss of memory, vs. loss of memory connected with some other mental disorder. [Addendum] Per Dusky v. United States 362 U.S. 402, competence to stand trial depends on whether the accused has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding -- and whether he has a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him. I am not aware of any exceptions e.g. whether this is not the case with strict liability crimes like statutory rape, and since it is generally held that "competency" is a requirement mandated by the due process clause, I don't think there could be an exception.
I think the Washington law and order is fairly clear: you must stay home unless you are engaged in certain allowed activities. The underlying law, RCW 43.06.220(h) empowers issuing an order prohibiting "Such other activities as he or she reasonably believes should be prohibited to help preserve and maintain life, health, property or the public peace". Therefore I can walk my dog. When I do, there are a lot of people also out walking their dogs, so that provides a letter-of-the-law permitted exception to the stay-at-home order. Nothing in the order specifically addresses the situation where you pause your dog-walk to talk to a neighbor (the "appropriate social distancing" sub-rule only applies to recreational departures from your home). It is well-established that the central legal issue is what the "compelling government interest" is, and whether these restrictions fail on grounds of narrow-tailoring or least-restrictiveness. The failure to include "go to your brother's place for lunch, provided you follow appropriate social distancing guidelines" as a permitted activity is a candidate for not being least-restrictive. The problem is that the courts will not engage in an infinite regress of second-guessings about whether certain measures are "truly necessary". There is a SCOTUS challenge where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld that's state's order, but a SCOTUS order requires the state to reply to a petition by Monday. The "status quo" is that these orders are legal, until someone constructs a compelling argument that they are not, and that matter is then resolved in favor of petitioner by SCOTUS (which has not happened). So far, governors have prevailed at the state level.
It is unlikely that the US, or any government, would condone any kind of crime. The reason for this is that the law must be seen to be impartial and applied fairly to all those subject to it. What happens if tomorrow, the government decides they don't like you? It is possible that this type of activity, or activity amounting to it, would be sanctioned in specific, authorised cases. But the government throwing a lynch mob at anyone is a bad idea for order and a peaceful society.
The probable answer is right there in the article: the Kim Dotcom case has been a PR coup but a legal disaster. Mr Dotcom has not, at this time, been jailed and it may have become apparent to US and NZ law enforcement agencies that he probably never will be! It is really, really easy to accuse someone of committing a crime; it can be really, really hard to prove it beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law. So after initiating a case that has turned out to be a total disaster, why would you expect them to do the same thing a second time?
If you state, to a third person, that Joe has performed a criminal act then that is defamation and you can be sued. Unless it is true. However, if you are relying on the truth as a defence you will need to provide evidence that it is. At the moment you lack: a criminal conviction of Joe any physical evidence against Joe any personal knowledge that Joe has committed these acts. All you have, is second hand rumours that this has happened to 5 women, some of whom have reported it to you in person. This is called hearsay and it is not evidence. It may be true, it probably is true - you can't prove it's true and in court, that's all that matters. If you were sued your only possible defence is to call these women to give the evidence they are unwilling to give - are you willing to betray their confidence to that extent?
Calls to 911 are treated as genuine at all times until the complaint is dealt with. This is because most people only call 911 for legitimate reasons and even some criminals call 911 because they want them to know the situation (Bomb scares are an extreme version of this as they cause a lot of disruption; they cannot be ignored because if the cops were to call bullshit and it was proven not to be bullshit, it's gonna be a lot worse than if they treat it as real and find out it's an alarm clock.). From the point of view of the first responders, whether cops, fire, or EMS, the call is always real and to be treated as such. Entering without warrant is legit if they have a probable cause of a crime or a person in distress, such as a hostage or a person in medical need; the emergency call is almost certainly sufficient. As you correctly said, at this point any evidence of a crime in plain sight is good reason to pursue the criminal acts unrelated to the original call. 911 calls are recorded so they can prove to the courts they got a tip and were following up. However, tying up emergency services with fake crimes is still not a proper use of 911 and there are ways to find people making bogus calls. 911 also traces phone calls in case of prank callers or even generally locating people in distress (if the dispatcher has to tell someone who is hiding from robbers in her house to be quiet, they can still dispatch officers to the general area by pinging the phone's metadata) so a string of burners will be noticed. Burner numbers can be traced to point of sale and most stores that carry them will have cameras (staff that remembers, not so much). If using pay phones, in this day and age, again there is likely cameras because the frequency of the latter and the infrequency of the former. Phone Booths haven't been a thing for far longer, so much so that the Christopher Reeves Superman film had a famous gag about how Phone Booths were phased out, when Clark Kent, needing to switch to his iconic Persona, runs to a bank of payphones (all without booths) and desperately looks for a new place to shed his clothes... in the 1970s. Either way, cops would be looking for nearby cameras to identify you and without many pay phones reliably lying around it won't take long. The more dangerous aspect of this is that drugs and organized crime are pretty much hand in hand. It could be the crack house you just called in is well known to the cops, but they're trying to use it to find out who the supplier is. The vigilante could be ruining their sting by calling in a true threat. If he does this too much, the local gang members will be looking out for him and may try to find him too; and whereas the police have rules, the gangs do not.