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The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.
William Jennings Jefferson is an American former politician from Louisiana whose career ended after his corruption scandal and conviction. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for nine terms from 1991 to 2009 as a member of the Democratic Party. He represented Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, which includes much of the greater New Orleans area. He was elected as the state's first black congressman since the end of Reconstruction.
In the United States, habitual offender laws have been implemented since at least 1952, and are part of the United States Justice Department's Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require a person who is convicted of an offense and who has one or two other previous serious convictions to serve a mandatory life sentence in prison, with or without parole depending on the jurisdiction. The purpose of the laws is to drastically increase the punishment of those who continue to commit offenses after being convicted of one or two serious crimes.
The LaRouche criminal trials in the mid-1980s stemmed from federal and state investigations into the activities of American political activist Lyndon LaRouche and members of his movement. They were charged with conspiring to commit fraud and soliciting loans they had no intention of repaying. LaRouche and his supporters disputed the charges, claiming the trials were politically motivated.
Sheldon Silver was an American Democratic Party politician, attorney, and convicted felon from New York City who served as speaker of the New York State Assembly from 1994 to 2015. A native of Manhattan's Lower East Side, Silver served in the New York State Assembly from 1977 to 2015. In 1994, he was selected as the Speaker of the Assembly; he held that position for two decades. During this period, Silver was known as one of the most powerful politicians in the state.
Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11 (2003), is one of two cases upholding a sentence imposed under California's three strikes law against a challenge that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. As in its prior decision in Harmelin v. Michigan, the United States Supreme Court could not agree on the precise reasoning to uphold the sentence. But, with the decision in Ewing and the companion case Lockyer v. Andrade, the Court effectively foreclosed criminal defendants from arguing that their non-capital sentences were disproportional to the crime they had committed.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.
Joan Orie Melvin is a former justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In 2013, Melvin was convicted of several criminal counts related to her use of legislative and judicial staff to perform campaign work. She is a member of the Republican Party.
Robert Peter Aguilar was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Robert Smith Vance was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He was one of three 20th-century United States federal court judges assassinated because of his judicial service.
Mark Arthur Ciavarella Jr. is an American convicted felon and former President Judge of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, who was involved, along with fellow judge Michael Conahan, in the "Kids for cash" scandal in 2008, for which he was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison in 2011.
David Joel Friedland was an American lawyer and Democratic Party politician from Hudson County, who served in the New Jersey General Assembly from 1966 to 1974 and then was elected to the Senate, serving from 1978 until his conviction on racketeering charges in 1980.
The "kids for cash" scandal centered on judicial kickbacks to two judges at the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, US. In 2008, judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella were convicted of accepting money in return for imposing harsh adjudications on juveniles to increase occupancy at a private prison operated by PA Child Care.
Honest services fraud is a crime defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1346, added by the United States Congress in 1988, which states "For the purposes of this chapter, the term scheme or artifice to defraud includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services."
Joseph Peter Ganim is an American Democratic politician, former attorney, and convicted felon who is currently serving as the mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was elected mayor of the city six times serving from 1991 to 2003, when he resigned after being convicted on federal felony corruption charges. In 2015, Ganim mounted a successful political comeback and was again elected Bridgeport mayor. Ganim was sworn in as mayor on December 1, 2015. Ganim has twice unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for governor of Connecticut, running in 1994 and 2018.
Troy Xavier Kelley is an American attorney, businessman, politician, and convicted felon who served as the 10th Washington State Auditor from 2013 to 2017, and is a member of the Democratic Party. He is a lieutenant colonel JAG officer in the Washington National Guard. Kelley was a member of the Washington House of Representatives, representing the 28th Legislative District from 2007 to 2013. In 2017 he was convicted of multiple counts of possession of stolen property, making false declarations in a court proceeding and tax fraud.
Israel Ruiz Jr. is an American attorney and politician from New York who served as a member of the New York State Senate and New York City Council.
Crystal Mason is an African-American woman who was convicted of attempting to cast a vote while on federal supervised release during the 2016 United States presidential election. Mason was under supervised release after completing a five-year sentence for tax fraud. She cast a provisional ballot after arriving at her polling place and finding her name stripped from the sign-in sheets. She was convicted three months later for voter fraud and sentenced to five years imprisonment. On March 31, 2021 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed to consider Mason's appeal.
References
- ↑ "Federal appeals court upholds Judge Michael T. Joyce's conviction, sentence: Federal court rejects former judge's appeal" Apr 2010
- ↑ "Former Judge Joyce sues insurers he was convicted of defrauding" Oct 2011
- ↑ Thompson, Lisa (July 11, 2015). "Sentence for former Erie judge, Michael T. Joyce, nears end". Erie Times-News . Retrieved October 3, 2020– via GoErie.com.