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.
In the United States,a district attorney (DA),county attorney,county prosecutor,state's attorney,prosecuting attorney,commonwealth's attorney,or solicitor is the chief prosecutor or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a local government area,typically a county or a group of counties. The exact scope of the office varies by state. Generally,the prosecutor is said to represent the people of the jurisdiction in the state's courts,typically in criminal matters,against defendants. With the exception of three states,district attorneys are elected,unlike similar roles in other common law jurisdictions.
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system,which is adopted in common law,or inquisitorial system,which is adopted in civil law. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against the defendant,an individual accused of breaking the law. Typically,the prosecutor represents the state or the government in the case brought against the accused person.
Irving Robert Kaufman was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Bruce Cutler is an American criminal defense lawyer best known for having defended John Gotti,and for media appearances as a legal commentator.
Martin H. Tankleff is an American man who was wrongly convicted of murdering his parents,Seymour and Arlene Tankleff,on September 7,1988,when he was 17 years old. After serving almost 18 years of imprisonment,his conviction was vacated and he was released from prison in 2007. He is now an attorney.
Dee Vance Benson was an American jurist who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah. He was nominated as judge by President George H. W. Bush on May 16,1991,and confirmed by the United States Senate on September 12,1991. In May 2004,Chief Justice William Rehnquist appointed Benson to serve as a judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a seven-year term.
A criminal defense lawyer is a lawyer specializing in the defense of individuals and companies charged with criminal activity. Some criminal defense lawyers are privately retained,while others are employed by the various jurisdictions with criminal courts for appointment to represent indigent persons;the latter are generally called public defenders. The terminology is imprecise because each jurisdiction may have different practices with various levels of input from country to country. Some jurisdictions use a rotating system of appointments,with judges appointing a private practice attorney or firm for each case.
Clark Waddoups is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah.
Dale Albert Kimball is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah.
Weldon Angelos is a music producer who was sentenced in a high profile marijuana case involving mandatory minimum sentences that was presented to the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case but Angelos was later released from prison 13 years later due to public pressure from celebrities,United States Senators,the judge that sentenced him,and ultimately the prosecutor who prosecuted him.
Stephen Hale Anderson is an inactive Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Paul George Cassell is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah,who is currently the Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and University Distinguished Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. He is best known as an expert in,and proponent of,victims' rights.
Albert Sherman Christensen was a trial attorney,author,and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah. Christensen was the first member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be appointed in Utah. He authored six books,volumes of poetry,and many legal articles. One of Christensen's most significant contributions to the legal community was his establishment of the United States' first American Inn of Court in 1980.
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.
Edward Francis Harrington is an American lawyer who serves as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Michele Marie MacNeill,née Somers,was an American homemaker and model. Michele was married for nearly 30 years to the physician Martin MacNeill and was the mother of eight children. She died in Pleasant Grove,Utah,on April 11,2007,while at home recovering from cosmetic surgery performed eight days earlier. At her husband's request,the operating surgeon prescribed four medicines for her recovery;two of the drugs,Diazepam and Oxycodone,would not normally be prescribed to his patients.
Bell v. Cone,535 U.S. 685 (2002),was a Supreme Court of the United States case that upheld a death sentence despite the defendant's argument that he should not be sentenced to death because he was suffering from drug-induced psychosis when he committed the crimes. Cone also argued that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to present sufficient mitigating evidence during the sentencing phase of his trial and that his attorney inappropriately waived his final argument during the sentencing phase. In an 8–1 opinion written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist,the United States Supreme Court denied Cone's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The Court held that the actions taken by Cone's attorney during the sentencing phase were "tactical decisions" and that the state courts that denied Cone's appeals did not unreasonably apply clearly established law. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that Cone was denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to "subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing."
Cone v. Bell,556 U.S. 449 (2009),was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that a defendant was entitled to a hearing to determine whether prosecutors in his 1982 death penalty trial violated his right to due process by withholding exculpatory evidence. The defendant,Gary Cone,filed a petition for postconviction relief from a 1982 death sentence in which he argued that prosecutors violated his rights to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment by withholding police reports and witness statements that potentially could have shown that his drug addiction affected his behavior. In an opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens,the Supreme Court held that Cone was entitled to a hearing to determine whether the prosecution's failure to disclose exculpatory evidence violated Cone's right to due process;the Court noted that "the quantity and the quality of the suppressed evidence lends support to Cone’s position at trial that he habitually used excessive amounts of drugs,that his addiction affected his behavior during his crime spree". In 2016,Gary Cone died from natural causes while still sitting on Tennessee's death row.
Daniel Lewis Lee was an American white supremacist,neo-Nazi,and convicted felon. In 1999,Lee was convicted as an accomplice to Chevie Kehoe in the 1996 murders of William Frederick Mueller,Nancy Ann Mueller,and their young daughter Sarah Elizabeth Powell,during a robbery at their Arkansas home. The murders were committed as part of a plot to establish a white ethnostate. While Kehoe was found guilty of the triple murder in a separate trial and was sentenced to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment without parole,Lee was sentenced to death. Lee had previously served prison time for assisting his cousin in the 1990 murder of Joey Wavra.
