Extortion

“ Others, such as Pennsylvania, retain the common-law definition of extortion but prohibit conduct for which appellees were charged under other statutes. [5] At least one State does not denominate any specific act as extortion but prohibits appellees' type of activities under the general heading of offenses directed against property. ”

“ That some of the substantive sections may be repetitive as being variants in phrasing of the same delict, or that petitioner could not be cumulatively punished for both an attempt to extort and a completed act of extortion, has no relevance to the legal consequences of two incontestably distinctive offenses, conspiracy and the completed crime that is its object. ”

“ Gentlemen, we all well know that, unfortunately for our cause and country, the evils Speculation and Extortion, had spread their leprous wings and covered our land with destitution. To a man of this city, who, before the world's eye, appeared the Christian and the man of benevolence, but who in his dealings with his fellow-men, was as vile an extortioner as the most heartless; to this man she went and hired a room in which to find a shelter. Finding she was a refugee and fearing an evil day, he bound her down by law to suffer ejectment the moment she could no longer pay the rent. ”

“ The section following [344] defines “Fear such as will constitute extortion may be induced by a threat either: (1) to do an unlawful injury to the person or property of the individual threatened, or to any relative of his, or member of his family.”
The court found that the threat which induced the fear in the Schmitz-Ruef extortion cases, was a threat to prevent the parties from obtaining a liquor license, and thus to prevent them from carrying on the business of selling wines and liquors at retail. ”

“ The justices held, in effect, that a man could not be taxed for simply making a living; that the license demanded from me had been an attempted piece of extortion, which was an usurpation of power for the officers to have sought to collect, when it was their duty to see that law and justice were secured to all. ”

“ A crime necessarily so secret as this form of extortion cannot be expected to leave traces behind it, except in those cases in which it proved a failure, but sufficient instances of the latter are on record to show that the tribunals were surrounded by men who made a trade of their influence, real or presumed, with the judges. When these were incorruptible the business was suppressed with more or less success, but when they were acquisitive, they had ample field for unhallowed gain, to be wrung without stint or check from the subject populations both by bribery and extortion. ”

“ It is true, that many an unfortunate fellow-citizen in Suffolk had been made to feel how close was the gripe of his hand, when he found himself in its grasp; but there is a way of practising the most ruthless extortion, that serves not only to deceive the world, but which would really seem to mislead the extortioner himself. ”

“ And be it further enacted, That, if any officer of the United States shall be guilty of extortion, under, or by colour of his office, every person so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by fine, not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment, not exceeding one year, according to the aggravation of the offence. ”

“ Although the victim of either embezzlement or extortion ordinarily has a legal right to restitution, the extortion victim, like a blackmail victim, can in a sense be charged with complicity in bringing about the taxable event in that he knowingly surrendered the funds to the extortionist, sometimes in payment of an actual obligation. ”

“ EXTEND, when the files of a line, or the divisions of a column are to occupy a greater space of ground, they are said to extend their front or line. Extended order is applicable to the light infantry.
EXTORTION, the act of obtaining money or property by violence or unjust means: taking advantage of the ignorance or peculiar circumstances of a purchaser, to demand more than a fair price for an article. All sutlers, or camp followers, who are guilty of extortion in the sale of necessaries, are punishable by a general or regimental court-martial. ”

“ But if the Board could understand, then I could furnish some more instruction--which is this. The one third, obtained by “theft and extortion,” is tainted money, and cannot be purified even by defraying “church expenses” and “supporting widows and orphans” with it. It has to be restored to the people it was taken from.
Also, there is another view of these things. By our Christian code of morals and law, the whole $1.33 1-3, if taken from a man not formally proven to have committed the damage the dollar represents, is “theft and extortion.” It cannot be honestly used for any purpose at all. ”

“ Whilst the king himself set so notable an example of extortion, we may be sure that his commissioners, spies, and tools of all sorts were not slack in this business of ferreting out and putting through the torture of their secret courts the unhappy subjects of every corner of the kingdom who had any substance to prey upon. ”

“ A person who, by extortion, causes another to surrender his/her property or obtains pecuniary advantage from the latter, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than ten years or by a fine not exceeding 20 million won. ”

“ William Rader of Calvary Presbyterian church, in a sermon preached on the evening of the Sunday after the decision was made public, January 12, 1908, “extortion is not a crime, when bribery is not even a wrong, when a confessed felon can learn that he is really righteous, and that his trial, confession and conviction have all been nothing but a mistake—a slight mistake—I repeat that however correct this may be legally and ethically, it has the effect of making us stand amazed at the rapid revolutions of the legal wheels. ”

“ And as to the conduct of the officers of the revenue, the provision in favor of trial by jury in criminal cases, will afford the security aimed at. Wilful abuses of a public authority, to the oppression of the subject, and every species of official extortion, are offenses against the government, for which the persons who commit them may be indicted and punished according to the circumstances of the case. ”

“ WISE. Extortion is a screwing from men more than by the law of God or men is right; and it is committed sometimes by them in office, about fees, rewards, and the like: [53] but it is most commonly committed by men of trade, who without all conscience, when they have the advantage, will make a prey of their neighbour. And thus was Mr. Badman an extortioner ”

“ EXECUTED FOR ROBBERY.
THIS offender was one of a class of the most mischievous and most daring robbers; and the case which we have to relate, is one of a most atrocious nature,—the extortion of money by means of threats to charge the person imposed upon with a detestable crime, an offence which, we regret to say, has been but too prevalent in later years. ”

“ And would a real son—a great lubberly fellow, well able to work as a porter or a footman—however wounded at her obstinate rejection, have been likely, in pursuit of no legal rights, to have alarmed her by threatening letters and intrusions, for no purpose but one confessedly of pecuniary extortion? ”

“ Finally, where the United States Code explicitly criminalizes conduct such as that alleged in the present case, it calls the crime bribery, not extortion-and like all bribery laws I am aware of (but unlike § 1951 and all other extortion laws I am aware of) it punishes not only the person receiving the payment but the person making it. ”

“ Such statutes have for more than a century been resorted to for the investigation of many offenses, chiefly those whose proof and punishment were otherwise impracticable, such as political bribery, extortion, gambling, consumer frauds, liquor violations, commercial larceny, and various forms of racketeering. This Court, in dealing with federal immunity acts, has on numerous occasions characterized such statutes as absolutely essential to the enforcement of various federal regulatory acts. ”

“ The courts of England have held that because § 2 of this act establishes rights beyond those existing at the common law, and § 3 gives an extraordinary remedy therefor, and § 6 excludes other remedies, there can be no recovery in an ordinary action for damages, based upon the mere infringement of the provisions of § 2; but it has been queried whether, for a violation of § 2, if such violation involves an unlawful extortion of money for carriage, the ordinary remedies at law for extortion may not be applicable. ”

“ If a pauper owes me a dollar, and I catch him unprotected and make him pay me fourteen dollars, thirteen of it is “theft and extortion”; if I make him pay only a dollar and thirty-three and a third cents the thirty-three and a third cents are “theft and extortion” just the same. I will put it in another way, still simpler. If a man owes me one dog--any kind of a dog, the breed is of no consequence--and I----But let it go; the Board would never understand it. ”

“ On this appeal the record does not contain the evidence upon which the court acted. The indictment charges interference with commerce by extortion in the words of the Act's definition of that crime. We rule only on the allegations of the indictment and hold that the acts charged against appellees fall within the terms of the Act. The order in arrest of judgment is reversed and the cause remanded to the District Court. ”

“ I understand the matter thus, O judges:—when any man is accused of extortion, if there be a contest between any parties as to who may best be entrusted with the prosecution, these two points ought to be regarded most especially; first, whom they, to whom the injury is said to have been done, wish most to be their counsel; and secondly, whom he, who is accused of having done those injuries, would least wish to be so. ”

“ To conclude that such actions constituted extortion would effectively discard the statutory requirement that property must be obtained from another, replacing it instead with the notion that merely interfering with or depriving someone of property is sufficient to constitute extortion. ”

“ Money alone decided cases in the courts. Justice and the laws disappeared. The rope was loosened from the very neck of the robber if he had anything of value to promise the king; while the popular courts of shires and hundreds were forced to become engines of extortion, probably by the employment of the sheriffs, who were allowed to summon them, not according to the old practice, but when and where it suited their convenience. The machinery of the state and the interpretation of its laws were, in days like these, completely at the mercy of a tyrannous king and an unscrupulous minister. ”

“ It is surprising how closely the low rustic extortioner and the city usurer upon a larger scale resemble each other in the expression of their sentiments, in their habits of business, their plausibility, natural tact, and especially, in that hardness of heart and utter want of all human pity and sympathy, upon which the success of their black arts of usury and extortion essentially depends. With extortion in all its forms Skinadre, for instance, was familiar. ”

“ Federal encroachment upon local criminal jurisdiction can also be very injurious to the states. Extortion, robbery, embezzlement and offenses of that nature are traditionally matters of local concern. ”

“ Every officer or agent appointed and acting under the authority of any revenue law of the United States-- First. Who is guilty of any extortion or willful oppression under color of law; or
Second. Who knowingly demands other or greater sums than are authorized by law, or receives any fee, compensation, or reward, except as by law prescribed, for the performance of any duty ”

“ Without saying any thing against the judgments, it will be allowed, that in neither case is the principle of Magna Carta adhered to, of a man being judged by his peers; besides, in every other fraud there is punishment proportioned to the crime. In this case there is no punishment, unless the extortion is exorbitant, and then the punishment is too great. ”

“ If by a force put upon the mind, or in other words, by the application of coercive motives, it must be by producing the apprehension of some evil: which evil, if the act is an offence, must be some evil to which on the occasion in question the one person has no right to expose the other. This is one case in which, if the offence be accompanied with the intention of detaining the thing for ever, whether it be or be not accompanied with the intention of not being amenable to law, it seems to agree with the idea of what is commonly meant by extortion. ”

“ Breaking into a house and opening boxes and drawers are circumstances of aggravation; but any forcible and compulsory extortion of a man's own testimony, or of his private papers to be used as evidence to convict him of crime or to forfeit his goods, is within the condemnation of that judgment. ”

“ For corruption, bribery, peculation and extortion suit may be brought against them inside of a year and a day either by the plaintiff himself or by any one of the people in the manner established by law. ”

“ And conversely, evidence that petitioner would have supported the legislation anyway is not a defense to the already completed crime. The thug who extorts protection money cannot defend on the ground that his threat was only a bluff because he would not have smashed the shopkeeper's windows even if the extortion had been unsuccessful. ”