Over the past few years in Georgia, the prosecutors’ crime du jour has become the RICO statue—Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. RICO allows the state to charge and convict people under novel theories for acts that may not fit into the standard definition of a crime. These cases often spark debate over whether the activity was in fact a crime or simply amoral.

Congress passed federal RICO in 1970, and Georgia followed suit passing its own RICO statute in 1980. The impetus of the RICO legislation was to tackle organized crime. Prior to RICO, the problem prosecutors faced in fighting organized crime was that those in command of the organization could shield themselves from liability—since they never did the “dirty” work.