A fascinating legal argument develops because the defendants attacked the organized crime statute as too vague, and the language used as too loose to define exactly what is meant by criminal syndicates and organized crime.
What was the rational basis, the defendants argued, for choosing the number five, as in "'criminal syndicate' means five or more persons collaborating to promote or engage in any of the following on a continuing basis…" And what exactly was a "continuing basis?"
Read this and you'll see how thoroughly the law examines individual cases, and how hard they try to make sure justice is fair.
Contrast this with Bill Scott and his gang of heroin traffickers. They didn't give a **** either for the law or for fairness. All they wanted was to sell their 85% pure heroin as fast as they could, and to hell with the poor people on the receiving end of their needles and syringes.
Shame on Cryptologic for accepting to be financed with the dirty rotten money from a heroin trafficker with a heavy criminal record for other serious offences. Without Intercasino, Cryptologic would be nothing, but all this was made possible by laundering Bill Scott’s dirty heroin money.
How different is Cryptologic from the Mafia? Based on everything we know about these crooks, we are convinced it’s just the same. No wonder Marion Stendon, Cryptologic’s in-house lawyer resigned so secretly. She got scared to work with organized crime!
Below are extracts from the court records, 100% original, not edited.
Justice Locher in State v. Phipps, 58 Ohio St. 2d 271, 272-273 (1979), set forth the standards determining if a statute is unconstitutionally void for vagueness and the distinction between over breadth and vagueness:
"While the United States Supreme Court has not always made a clear distinction between the doctrines of over breadth and vagueness, we believe the proper standard for determining if a statute is vague is found in Connally v. General Construction Co. (1926), 269 U.S. 385, and Grayned v. Rockford (1972) 408 U.S. 104. In Connally v. General Construction Co., the Supreme Court stated, at [*21] page 391, that a vague statute is one 'which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.' See Zwickler v. Koota (1967), 389 U.S. 241, 249; Cameron v. Johnson (1968), 390 U.S. 611, 616; Colten v. Kentucky (1972), 407 U.S. 104, 110-111; Broadrick v. Oklahoma (1973), 413 U.S. 601, 607. In Grayned v. Rockford, the Supreme Court distinguished the vagueness and overbreadth doctrines, pointing out that it is a basic principle of due process that 'an enactment is void for vagueness if its prohibitions are not clearly defined,' whereas '[a] clear and precise enactment may nevertheless be 'overbroad' if in its reach it prohibits constitutionally protected conduct.' Id., at pages 108 and 114."
We are not dealing with any problems of overbreadth because the proscribed conduct here does not involve any first amendment freedoms or other constitutionally protected conduct. See, Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601 at 610 (1973):
"Embedded in the traditional rules governing constitutional adjudication is the principle that a person to whom a statute may constitutionally [*22] be applied will not be heard to challenge that statute on the ground that it may conceivably be applied unconstitutionally to others, in other situations not before the court. [Citations omitted]. A closely related principle is that constitutional rights are personal and may not be asserted vicariously. See, McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 429-430, 6 L. Ed. 2d 393, 81 S. Ct. 1101 (1961). These principles rest on more than the fussiness of judges. They reflect the conviction that under our constitutional system courts are not roving commissions assigned to pass judgment on the validity of the Nation's laws. See, Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 52, 27 L. Ed. 2d 669, 91 S. Ct. 746 (1971). Constitutional judgments, as Mr. Chief Justice Marshall recognized, are justified only out of the necessity of adjudicating rights in particular cases between the litigants brought before the Court.
"In the past, the Court has recognized some limited exceptions to these principles, but only because of the most 'weighty countervailing policies.' United States v. Raines, 362 U.S., at 22-23, 4 L. Ed. 2d 524. One such exception is where individuals not parties to a particular suit stand to lose [*23] by its outcome and yet have no effective avenue of preserving their rights themselves. See, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 444-446, 31 L. Ed. 2d 349, 92 S. Ct. 1029 (1972); NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1488, 78 S. Ct. 1163 (1958). Another exception has been carved out in the area of the First Amendment.
"It has long been recognized that the First Amendment needs breathing space and that statutes attempting to restrict or burden the exercise of First Amendment rights must be narrowly drawn and represent a considered legislative judgment that a particular mode of expression has to give way to other compelling needs of society."
We are only dealing here with the question of vagueness. Let us look at what the United States Supreme Court has said on the vagueness question.
Justice Marshall in Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108-109 (1972) wrote:
"It is a basic principle of due process that an enactment is void for vagueness if its prohibitions are not clearly defined. Vague laws offend several important values. First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of ordinary [*24] intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly. Vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application. Third, but related, where a vague statute 'abut[s] upon sensitive areas of basic First Amendment freedoms,' it 'operates to inhibit the exercise of [those] freedoms.' Uncertain meanings inevitably lead citizens to 'steer far wider of the unlawful zone.' than if the boundaries of the forbidden areas were clearly marked.'"
In Boyce Motor Lines v. United States, 342 U.S. 337, 340-341 (1952), the court said:
"A criminal statute must be sufficiently definite to give notice of the required conduct to one who would avoid its penalties, and to guide the judge in its application and the lawyer in defending one charged with its violation. But few words possess the precision [*25] of mathematical symbols, most statutes must deal with untold and unforeseen variations in factual situations, and the practical necessities of discharging the business of government inevitably limit the specificity with which legislators can spell out prohibitions. Consequently, no more than a reasonable degree of certainty can be demanded. Nor is it unfair to require that one who deliberately goes perilously close to an area of proscribed conduct shall take the risk that he may cross the line.
"In Sproles v. Binford, 286 U.S. 374, 76 L. Ed. 1167, 52 S. Ct. 581 (1932), these principles were applied in upholding words in a criminal statute similar to those now before us. Chief Justice Hughes, speaking for a unanimous court, there said:
"'Shortest practicable route' is not an expression too vague to be understood. The requirement of reasonable certainty does not preclude the use of ordinary terms to express ideas, which find adequate interpretation in common usage and understanding. *** The use of common experience as a glossary is necessary to meet the practical demands of legislation."
Justice Felix Frankfurther's dissent in Winters v. New York, 333 U.S. 507, [*26] 524-26 (1948) thoroughly discusses the vagueness or indefiniteness concept. He says:
"Fundamental fairness of course requires that people be given notice of what to avoid. If the purpose of a statute is undisclosed, if the legislature's will has not been revealed, it offends reason that punishment should be meted out for conduct which at the time of its commission was not forbidden to the understanding of those who wished to observe the law. This requirement of fair notice that there is a boundary of prohibited conduct not to be overstepped is included in the conception of 'due process of law.' The legal jargon for such failure to give forewarning is to say that the statute is void for 'indefiniteness.'
"But, 'indefiniteness' is not a quantitative concept. It is not even a technical concept of definite components. It is itself an indefinite concept. There is no such thing as 'indefiniteness' in the abstract, by which the sufficiency of the requirement expressed by the term may be ascertained. The requirement is fair notice that conduct may entail punishment. But whether notice is or is not 'fair' depends upon the subject matter to which it relates. Unlike [*27] the abstract stuff of mathematics, or the quantitatively ascertainable elements of much of natural science, legislation is greatly concerned with the multiform psychological complexities of individual and social conduct. Accordingly, the demands upon legislation, and its responses, are variable and multiform. That which may appear to be too vague and even meaningless as to one subject matter may be as definite as another subject matter of legislation permits, if the legislative power to deal with such a subject is not to be altogether denied. The statute books of every state are full of instances of what may look like unspecific definitions of crime, of the drawing of wide circles of prohibited conduct.
"In these matters legislatures are confronted with a dilemma. If a law is framed with narrow particularity, too easy opportunities are afforded to nullify the purposes of the legislation. If the legislation is drafted in terms so vague that no ascertainable line is drawn in advance between innocent and condemned conduct, the purpose of the legislation cannot be enforced because no purpose is defined. It is not merely in the enactment of tax measures that the task of reconciling [*28] these extremes - of avoiding throttling particularity or unfair generality - is one of the most delicate and difficult confronting legislators. The reconciliation of these two contradictories is necessarily an empiric enterprise largely depending on the nature of the particular legislative problem.
"What risks do the innocent run of being caught in a net not designed for them? How important is the policy of the legislation, so that those who really like to pursue innocent conduct are not likely to be caught unaware? How easy is it to be explicitly particular? How necessary is it to leave a somewhat penumbral margin but sufficiently revealed by what is condemned to those who do not want to sail close to the shore of questionable conduct? These and like questions confront legislative draftsmen. Answers to these questions are not to be found in any legislative manual nor in the work of great legislative draftsmen. They are not to be found in the opinions of this Court. These are questions of judgment, peculiarly within the responsibility and the competence of legislatures. The discharge of that responsibility should not be set at naught by abstract notions about 'indefiniteness.'
[*29]
When speaking on the vagueness of prohibited activities in the Hatch Act, the court said in United States Civil Service Comm. v. National Association of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, 577-79 (1973):
"There might be quibbles about the meaning of taking an 'active part in managing' or about 'actively participating in ... fundraising' or about the meaning of becoming a 'partisan' candidate for office; but there are limitations in the English language with respect to being both specific and manageably brief, and it seems to us that although the prohibitions may not satisfy those intent on finding fault at any cost, they are set out in terms that the ordinary person exercising ordinary common sense can sufficiently understand and comply with, without sacrifice to the public interest. * * *."
In United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 617-618 (1954), the court said:
"The constitutional requirement of definiteness is violated by a criminal statute that fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute. The underlying principle is that no man shall be held criminally responsible for conduct, which he could not [*30] reasonably understand to be proscribed.
"On the other hand, if the general class of offenses to which the statute is directed is plainly within its terms, the statute will not be struck down as vague, even though marginal cases could be put where doubts might arise. United States v. Petrillo, 332 U.S. 1, 7. Cf. Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S. 223, 231. And if this general class of offenses can be made constitutionally definite by a reasonable construction of the statute, this Court is under a duty to give the statute that construction. This was the course adopted in Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, upholding the definiteness of the Civil Rights Act."
Now, let us apply these principles to R.C. 2923.04. Of the twelve points claimed by the proponents of vagueness, five (3, 4, 5, 6, 10) are primarily concerned with the possibility that lawful activity must be punished. This stems from the use of the word, "activities," in subsections (A), (A)(1), (A)(2) and (A)(3) without any words of limitation as to illegality or scienter. Defendants further argue that vagueness is compounded because one does not know when one's lawful conduct is unlawful because it facilitates [*31] the activities of the criminal syndicate.
We hold that to be guilty under this statute it must be the defendant's specific intent to establish or maintain a criminal syndicate and/or to facilitate any of its activities. Thus, while conduct may otherwise be lawful, if it is done with the purpose to establish or maintain the criminal syndicate or facilitate any of its activities, then it is unlawful. We choose to believe that it was never the legislative intent to punish innocent behavior. The above interpretation requires a scienter which proscribes any purposeful conduct to establish or maintain a criminal syndicate or to facilitate any of its activities.
