Criminal syndicate

“ Criminal syndicalism hereby is defined to be the doctrine which advocates crime, physical violence, sabotage, or any unlawful acts or methods as a means of accomplishing or effecting industrial or political change or revolution. ”

“ Criminal Syndicates Will Be Treated As What They Are, Direct Threats To National Security. Criminals Are Criminals, Whether Of The Common Kind Or The Kind That Kill In The Name Of Political Advocacies. They Will Feel The Full Brunt Of The Arsenal Of Democracy. Freedom, Too, Is Entitled To Self-Defense. ”

“ Assembling for purpose declared a felony.—Wherever two or more persons assemble for the purpose of advocating or teaching the doctrines of criminal syndicalism defined in this act, such an assemblage is unlawful and every person voluntarily participating therein by his presence, aid or instigation is guilty of a felony and punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than 10 years or by a fine of not more than $5,000.00 or both. ”

“ As previously noted, the organizational structure and operational methods employed by organized crime have created unique problems for law enforcement. High-ranking organized crime figures are protected by layers of insulation from direct participation in criminal acts, and a rigid code of discipline inhibits the development of informants against them. A soldier in a family can complete his entire crime career without ever associating directly with his boss. ”

“ Organizes or assists in organizing, or is or knowingly becomes a member of, any organization, society, group or assemblage of persons organized or assembled to advocate, teach or aid and abet criminal syndicalism; or 5. Wilfully by personal act or conduct, practices or commits any act advised, advocated, taught or aided and abetted by the doctrine or precept of criminal syndicalism, with intent to accomplish a change in industrial ownership or control, or effecting any political change ”

“ We know the reason and we do not expect to be loved by too many.”
It was, we submit, at all times the exclusive function and purpose of the SS to carry out the common objectives of the defendant conspirators. Its activities in carrying out those functions involved the commission of the crimes defined in Article 6 of the Charter. By reason of its aims and the means used for the accomplishment thereof, the SS should be declared a criminal organization in accordance with Article 9 of the Charter. ”

“ When an organizer or leader of an organization of the gang nature or a ringleader of a vicious organization, who was sentenced to criminal punishment runs an enterprise or serves as a senior manager in an enterprise, the departments in charge of relevant industries shall conduct examination in accordance with the law and strengthen supervision and administration of the enterprise's business activities. ”

“ But the gun-man-and-mob method was discarded, temporarily at least, in favor of the machinations of lumber trust tools in the law making bodies. Big Business can make laws as easily as it can break them--and with as little impunity. So the notorious Washington "Criminal Syndicalism" law was devised. ”

“ What the indictment does charge, in plain and concise language, is that the defendant presided at, conducted and assisted in conducting an assemblage of persons, organization, society and group, to-wit, the Communist party, which said assemblage of persons, organization, society and group was unlawfully teaching and advocating in Multnomah county the doctrine of criminal syndicalism and sabotage. In this view, lack of sufficient evidence as to illegal advocacy or action at the meeting became immaterial. ”

“ Any person who, by word of mouth, or writing, advocates, affirmatively suggests or teaches the duty, necessity, propriety or expediency of crime, criminal syndicalism, or sabotage, * * * is guilty of a felony. ”

“ The term ‘criminal gang’ means an ongoing group, club, organization, or association of 5 or more persons that has as one of its primary purposes the commission of 1 or more of the following criminal offenses and the members of which engage, or have engaged within the past 5 years, in a continuing series of such offenses, or that has been designated as a criminal gang by the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, as meeting these criteria. ”

“ A criminal organization is analogous to a criminal conspiracy in that the essence of both is cooperation for criminal [1030] purposes. There must be a group bound together and organized for a common purpose. The group must be formed or used in connection with the commission of crimes denounced by the Charter. ”

“ Experience shows that the vicious become more vicious by confinement in the chain gangs, and it not infrequently happens that individuals, after having been degraded by a first sentence, become outcasts and spend from a half to two-thirds of their lives thereafter in prison. The chain gang system can hardly be 128 urged in any sense as a reformatory, and from the frequent returns thereto of the criminal class can be hardly styled as a first-class preventive of crime. ”

“ If an organization was being used for criminal purposes—and I added that there was very great evidence that such was the case in certain instances—why would it not be proper to hold it a criminal organization insofar as it was composed of persons who had knowledge that it was being so used and voluntarily remained members? ”

“ Regrettable as it may seem, no police force, however large, could arrest all the violators of every law, and no system of courts could dispose of the multitude of offenders. We do the best we can and make an example of a few, hoping thus to persuade the others to be good. If every citizen undertook to exercise his right of arresting every individual whom he saw committing petty crime, the business of the community would come to a standstill and the magistrates' courts would be hopelessly congested with great hordes of prisoners, irate witnesses, and gratuitous policemen. ”

“ The dictionary definitions adopted by the state court extend to persons acting together for some purpose, 'usually criminal', or 'mainly for criminal purposes'. So defined, the purposes of those constituting some gangs may be commendable, as, for example, groups of workers engaged under leadership in any lawful undertaking. ”

“ The immediate sanction triggered by the application of the rule is visited upon the prosecutor whose case against a criminal is either weakened or destroyed. The doctrine deprives the police in no real sense; except that apprehending wrongdoers is their business, police have no more stake in successful prosecutions than prosecutors or the public.
The suppression doctrine vaguely assumes that law enforcement is a monolithic governmental enterprise. ”

“ Each for its own ends—be it professional pride, personal glorification, hard cash, or revenge—is equally anxious to find the evidence and establish a case. Of course, the police are the first ones notified of the commission of a crime, but as it is now almost universally their duty to inform at once the coroner and also the district attorney thereof, a tripartite race for glory frequently results which adds nothing to the dignity of the administration of criminal justice. ”

“ There is an allowed and constant connection between the criminal and the officer engaged in suppressing crime, but whether it be necessary and unavoidable, or the best disposition possible, deserves some consideration. The hangman is in general only a little more fortunate than his culprit. The leader of a band of Regulators is commonly more ferocious, and as lawless as the victim against whom his fury is directed. The lawyer unscrupulously pockets a fee, which he knows has been obtained by the plunder of the citizen. ”

“ Since 1884 Waldeck-Rousseau's plan had been to transform the syndicates into politico-criminal associations which could serve as auxiliaries to the democratic Government. The syndicates were to play a part analogous to that played by the lodges, the latter being useful in spying on the officials, and the former designed to threatening the interests of those employers who were not on the side of the administration; the freemasons being rewarded by decorations and favours given to their friends, the workmen being authorised to extract extra wages from their employers. ”

“ May it please the Tribunal, there are businessmen who are owners of several firms. If, now, the owner uses one of these firms to commit criminal acts, can we say that the other firms and their employees are also criminal? On the basis of this principle, I consider it necessary to point out which organizations, according to the reasons given by the Prosecution so far, are affected by the Indictment as units of the SS. They are:
1. The General SS—strength at the beginning of the war, about 350,000 men. ”

“ I mean the “doing in,” as our criminals call it, of the unprofessional accomplice. It's a regulation piece of business with the hard-and-fast criminal organizations of the Continent, like the Nervi of Marseilles, or the Lecca of Paris.
“'They take in a house servant, a shopkeeper's watchman, or a bank guard to help them in some big haul. Then they lure him into some abandoned house, under a pretense of dividing up the booty, and there put him out of the way. That's what's happened here. It's a common plan with these criminal groups, and clever of them. ”

“ No law on earth since time immemorial ever allowed the passing of judgment against an organization instead of against its single members. The laws and precedents quoted yesterday by the Prosecution regarding criminal gangs and conspiracy certainly recognize to a large extent the collective responsibility for acts of accomplices, but two requirements must be fulfilled there too: Firstly, the member must know that he is party to a criminal conspiracy or criminal association ”

“ The encounter did not leave behind with Chief Inspector Heat that satisfactory sense of superiority the members of the police force get from the unofficial but intimate side of their intercourse with the criminal classes, by which the vanity of power is soothed, and the vulgar love of domination over our fellow-creatures is flattered as worthily as it deserves. ”

“ The national agencies prefer clean criminal work, murder cases, and general investigating. They no longer undertake any policing, strike-breaking, or guarding. The most ridiculous misinformation in regard to their participation in this sort of work has been spread broadcast largely by jealous enemies and by the labor unions. ”

“ Few complainants have ever before appeared in a police court, and are filled with repugnance at the rough treatment of prisoners and the suffering which they observe upon every side. After they have seen the prisoner emerge from the cells, pale, hollow-eyed, bedraggled, and have beheld the tears of his wife and children as they crowd around the husband and father, they begin to realize the horrible consequences of a criminal prosecution and to regret that they ever took the steps which have brought the wrong-doer where he is. ”

“ Under English-American law, French law, and also the Soviet legal code, it is provided that membership in an organization which has criminal aims makes an individual liable. There are two legal decrees on the subject—in U.S.S.R. penal code, Articles 58-11 and 59-3. These laws provide for the responsibility of members of criminal organizations. They are considered criminals, not only for committing crimes, but also for belonging to an organization which is considered criminal. The very fact of belonging to an organization, the law states, makes a person liable to prosecution. ”

“ Law enforcement's way of fighting organized crime has been primitive compared to organized crime's way of operating. Law enforcement must use methods at least as efficient as organized crime's. The public and law enforcement must make a full-scale commitment to destroy the power of organized crime groups. The Commission's program indicates ways to implement that commitment. ”

“ The membership which the Charter and the Control Council Act make criminal, of course, implies a genuine membership involving the volition of the member. The act of affiliation with the organization must have been intentional and voluntary. Legal compulsion or illegal duress, actual fraud or trick of which one is a victim, has never been thought to be the victim’s crime, and such an unjust result is not to be implied now. ”

“ Third, we've launched a full-scale offensive on the home ground of career criminals—organized crime itself. Organized crime arrests have nearly tripled, and confiscation of their assets is also sharply up. Our new commission on organized crime has brought much needed public attention to this problem, and as soon as it receives subpoena power, it will do even more. ”

“ It appears to me that there is a certain degree of complexity attached to the problem of the criminal organizations. There is very extensive correspondence by members of various organizations, that has been submitted to the Tribunal on the subject of these organizations. Such abundance of discussion comes from an incorrect interpretation of legal proceedings if an organization is declared criminal. ”

“ Because many rackets are conducted by highly organized syndicates whose influence extends over State and National borders, the Federal Government should come to the aid of local law enforcement authorities in an effort to stem such activity.' S.Rep. ”

“ An organization may have criminal purposes and commit criminal acts although one or many of its members were without personal knowledge thereof. If a person joined what he thought was a social club but what in fact was a gang of cutthroats and murderers, his lack of knowledge would not exonerate the gang considered as a group, although it might possibly be a factor in extenuation of a charge of criminality brought against him for mere membership in the organization. ”