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Bejerano v. State5/12/2000
ed out the residences to the others, who then carried out the robberies. All shared in the stolen profits. The operations lasted over a year. Four men were initially involved, but others were added later. The court held that it did not need to analyze whether the state presented sufficient evidence of a decision -making structure and mechanism for controlling and directing the group because it held such proof was not required to establish the existence of an enterprise under the Florida RICO statute.
This court has not specifically addressed that element of a RICO enterprise. In Brown v. State, 652 So.2d 877 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995), this court reversed a RICO conviction on the ground that the state had failed to prove the "first" element of an enterprise: that there was an ongoing organization. In Brown, the defendant had stolen checks from a business, and he coached and enabled various accomplices to cash them at various places. His methods were organized, but there was no evidence that he associated with any of his accomplices except to cash the checks and they had no connection with one another.
In Brown, this court said the second element of enterprise - that the associates function as a continuous unit -- requires some degree of temporal continuity. In that case, we said that was a jury issue because the defendant could have continued on as long as stolen checks were available. With regard to the third element and the one involved in this case - that the organization have an existence separate and apart from the pattern of racketeering activity in which it engages --we concluded that proof of that element failed also because it "dove tailed with the first." There was nothing linking the members of the check-cashing scheme to one another except the commission of the check-cashing operation itself. Although the opinion quotes extensively from Boyd, initially, and does include language about necessity to prove a decision-making structure, that was not the basis for the decision.
Both points of view on the enterprise issue draw on language from United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576 (1981). That case determined that "enterprise," as used in the federal RICO statute, encompassed both legitimate and illegitimate enterprises. It said the primary purpose of RICO was to cope with the infiltration of legitimate business by organized crime. In view of its remedial purpose, the Court gave "enterprise" a broad definition rather than a limited one. It also emphasized that the evidence in that case disclosed the professional nature of the organization and the execution of a number of distinct criminal acts. Concerning what an enterprise is, the Court said it is proved by "evidence of an ongoing organization, formal or informal, and evidence that the various associates function as a continuing unit." 452 U.S. 576, 584. It must exist separate and apart from the pattern of racketeering activity in which it is engaged. But nowhere in that opinion does one find the additional requirement that the state or government must show an organized structure with decision-making channels of authority.
We agree with Gross that such a showing is not required to prove an enterprise exists in a Florida RICO case. Thus, there was no necessity in this case for the trial judge to give the special instruction offered by the defense, which added that refinement to the definition of "enterprise." The trial judge gave the standard jury instruction, which essentially tracked the statute:
'Enterprise' means any individual, sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, business trust, union chartered under the laws of this state, or other legal entity, or any unchartered union, association, or gr
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