SCHEIDLER ET AL. v. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN, INC., ET AL.
No. 01-1118
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Argued December 4, 2002—Decided February 26, 2003
537 U.S. 393
*Together with No. 01-1119, Operation Rescue v. National Organization for Women, Inc., et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
Roy T. Englert, Jr., argued the cause for petitioners in both cases. On the briefs in No. 01-1118 were Alan Untereiner, Arnon D. Siegel, Kathryn S. Zecca, Sherri Lynn Wolson, Thomas Brejcha, Deborah Fischer, and D. Colette Wilson. On the brief in No. 01-1119 were Jay Alan Sekulow, Colby M. May, Stuart J. Roth, James M. Henderson, Sr., Vincent P. McCarthy, Walter M. Weber, Larry L. Crain, David A. Cortman, Robert W. Ash, Thomas P. Monaghan, and Charles E. Rice.
Solicitor General Olson argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Chertoff, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, Lisa Schiavo Blatt, and Frank J. Marine.
†Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Alabama et al. by William H. Pryor, Jr., Attorney General of Alabama, and Charles B. Campbell, Deputy Solicitor General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Mark Barnett of South Dakota, and Robert Torres of the Northern Mariana Islands; for Americans United for Life by Nikolas T. Nikas, Denise M. Burke, Dorinda C. Bordlee, and G. Robert Blakey; for Catholics for Life, Sacramento, by James Joseph Lynch, Jr.; for the Center for Individual Rights by Michael E. Rosman; for Concerned Women for America by Theresa Schrempp and Mark L. Lorbiecki; for Liberty Counsel by Mathew D. Staver; for the Life Legal Defense Foundation by Andrew W. Zepeda and Catherine W. Short; for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers by William J. Mertens; for the New York Council of Defense Lawyers by Richard A. Greenberg, Karl E. Pflanz, and Victor J. Rocco; for the Rutherford Institute by Jamin B. Raskin, John W. Whitehead, and Steven H. Aden; and for the Seamless Garment Network et al. by Edward McGlynn Gaffney, Jr., William W. Bassett, G. Robert Blakey, Angela C. Carmella, Robert A. Destro, Marie A. Failinger, Victor Gregory Rosenblum, and Gerald F. Uelmen.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of California et al. by Bill Lockyer, Attorney General of California, Manuel M. Medeiros, Solicitor General, Richard M. Frank, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Mary E. Hackenbracht, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Helen G. Arens, Deputy Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of New York, Caitlin J. Halligan, Solicitor General, and Daniel J. Chepaitis, Assistant Solicitor General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, Mike McGrath of Montana, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Christine O. Gregoire of Washington, and Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia; for the American Medical Association et al. by William A. Norris, Michael C. Small, and Sandra M. Lee; for the Feminist Majority Foundation et al. by Steven G. Gey; for Former Federal Prosecutors et al. by Maria T. Vullo; for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law by Joseph R. Bankoff, Thomas Henderson, and Nancy Anderson; for Motorola
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Inc., by Raymond J. LaJeunesse, Jr.; for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc., by Jeffrey S. Kerr and Craig M. Bradley; for Texas Black Americans for Life et al. by Lawrence J. Joyce; and for Emily Lyons by Pamela L. Sumners.
CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in these cases to answer two questions. First, whether petitioners committed extortion within the meaning of the Hobbs Act,
We once again address questions arising from litigation between petitioners, a coalition of antiabortion groups called the Pro-Life Action Network (PLAN), Joseph Scheidler, and other individuals and organizations that oppose legal abortion,1 and respondents, the National Organization for Women, Inc. (NOW), a national nonprofit organization that supports the legal availability of abortion, and two health
In 1986, respondents sued in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois alleging, inter alia, that petitioners violated RICO‘s
The District Court dismissed respondents’ RICO claims for failure to allege that the predicate acts of racketeering or the racketeering enterprise were economically motivated. See National Organization for Women, Inc. v. Scheidler, 765 F. Supp. 937 (ND Ill. 1991). The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed that dismissal. See National Organization for Women, Inc. v. Scheidler, 968 F. 2d 612 (1992). We granted certiorari and reversed, concluding that RICO does not require proof that either the racketeering enterprise or the predicate acts of racketeering were moti-
After a 7-week trial, a six-member jury concluded that petitioners violated the civil provisions of RICO. By answering a series of special interrogatory questions, the jury found, inter alia, that petitioners’ alleged “pattern of racketeering activity” included 21 violations of the Hobbs Act,
The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed in relevant part. The Court of Appeals rejected petitioners’ contention that the things respondents claimed were “obtained“—the class women‘s right to seek medical services from the clinics, the clinic doctors’ rights to perform their jobs, and the clinics’ rights to provide medical services and otherwise conduct their business—were not “property” for purposes of the Hobbs Act. The court explained that it had “repeatedly held that intangible property such as the right to conduct a business can be considered ‘property’ under the Hobbs Act.” 267 F. 3d 687, 709 (2001). Likewise, the Court of Appeals dismissed petitioners’ claim that even if “property” was involved, petitioners did not “obtain” that property; they merely forced respondents to part with it. Again relying on Circuit precedent, the court held that “‘as a legal
We first address the question whether petitioners’ actions constituted extortion in violation of the Hobbs Act. That Act defines extortion as “the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.”
Respondents, throughout the course of this litigation, have asserted, as the jury instructions at the trial reflected,4 that petitioners committed extortion under the Hobbs Act by using or threatening to use force, violence, or fear to cause respondents “to give up” property rights, namely, “a woman‘s right to seek medical services from a clinic, the right of
The United States offers a view similar to that of respondents, asserting that “where the property at issue is a business‘s intangible right to exercise exclusive control over the use of its assets, [a] defendant obtains that property by obtaining control over the use of those assets.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22. Although the Government acknowledges that the jury‘s finding of extortion may have been improperly based on the conclusion that petitioners deprived respondents of a liberty interest,5 it maintains that under its theory of liability, petitioners committed extortion.
Absent contrary direction from Congress, we begin our interpretation of statutory language with the general presumption that a statutory term has its common-law meaning. See Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575, 592 (1990); Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 263 (1952). At common law, extortion was a property offense committed by a public official who took “any money or thing of value” that was not due to him under the pretense that he was entitled to such property by virtue of his office. 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 141 (1765); 3 R. Anderson, Wharton‘s Criminal Law and Procedure § 1393, pp. 790-791 (1957). In 1946, Congress enacted the Hobbs Act, which explicitly “expanded the common-law definition of extortion to include acts by private individuals.” Evans v. United States, 504 U. S. 255, 261 (1992) (emphasis deleted). While
Congress used two sources of law as models in formulating the Hobbs Act: the Penal Code of New York and the Field Code, a 19th-century model penal code. See Evans, supra, at 261-262, n. 9.7 Both the New York statute and the Field Code defined extortion as “the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by a wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right.” 4 Commissioners of the Code, Proposed Penal Code of the State of New York § 613 (1865) (reprint 1998) (Field Code); N. Y. Penal Law § 850 (1909). The Field Code explained that extortion was one of four property crimes, along with robbery, larceny, and embezzlement, that included “the criminal acquisition of . . . property.” § 584 note, p. 210. New York case law before the enactment of the Hobbs Act demonstrates that this “obtaining of property” requirement included both a deprivation and acquisition of property. See, e. g., People v. Ryan, 232 N. Y. 234, 236, 133 N. E. 572, 573 (1921) (explaining that an intent “to extort” requires an accompanying intent to “gain money or property“); People v. Weinseimer, 117 App. Div. 603, 616, 102 N. Y. S. 579, 588 (1907) (noting that in an extortion prosecution, the issue that must be decided is whether the accused “receive[d] [money] from the complainant“).8
There is no dispute in these cases that petitioners interfered with, disrupted, and in some instances completely deprived respondents of their ability to exercise their property rights. Likewise, petitioners’ counsel readily acknowledged at oral argument that aspects of his clients’ conduct were criminal.9 But even when their acts of interference and dis-
Eliminating the requirement that property must be obtained to constitute extortion would not only conflict with the express requirement of the Hobbs Act, it would also eliminate the recognized distinction between extortion and the separate crime of coercion—a distinction that is implicated in these cases. The crime of coercion, which more accurately describes the nature of petitioners’ actions, involves the use of force or threat of force to restrict another‘s freedom of action. Coercion‘s origin is statutory, and it was clearly defined in the New York Penal Code as a separate, and lesser, offense than extortion when Congress turned to New York law in drafting the Hobbs Act.10 New York case
With this distinction between extortion and coercion clearly drawn in New York law prior to 1946, Congress’ decision to include extortion as a violation of the Hobbs Act and omit coercion is significant assistance to our interpretation of the breadth of the extortion provision. This assistance is amplified by other evidence of Congress’ awareness of the difference between these two distinct crimes. In 1934, Congress formulated the Anti-Racketeering Act, ch. 569, 48 Stat. 979. This Act, which was the predecessor to the Hobbs Act, targeted, as its name suggests, racketeering activities that affected interstate commerce, including both extortion and coercion as defined under New York law.11 Accordingly, the
Several years after the enactment of the Anti-Racketeering Act, this Court decided United States v. Teamsters, 315 U. S. 521 (1942). In Teamsters, this Court construed an exception provided in the Anti-Racketeering Act for the payment of wages by a bona fide employer to a bona fide employee to find that the Act “did not cover the actions of union truckdrivers who exacted money by threats or violence from out-of-town drivers in return for undesired and often unutilized services.” United States v. Culbert, 435 U. S. 371, 377 (1978) (citing Teamsters, supra). “Congressional disapproval of this decision was swift,” and the Hobbs Act was subsequently enacted to supersede the Anti-Racketeering Act and reverse the result in Teamsters. Enmons, 410 U. S., at 402, and n. 8. The Act prohibited interference with commerce by “robbery or extortion” but, as explained above, did not mention coercion.
This omission of coercion is particularly significant in light of the fact that after Teamsters, a “paramount congressional concern” in drafting the Hobbs Act “was to be clear about what conduct was prohibited.” Culbert, supra, at 378.12 Accordingly, the Act “carefully defines its key terms, such as ‘robbery,’ ‘extortion,’ and ‘commerce.‘” 435 U. S., at 373. Thus, while coercion and extortion certainly overlap to the extent that extortion necessarily involves the use of coercive
We have said that the words of the Hobbs Act “do not lend themselves to restrictive interpretation” because they “‘manifes[t] a purpose to use all the constitutional power Congress has to punish interference with interstate commerce by extortion, robbery or physical violence.‘” Culbert, supra, at 373 (quoting Stirone v. United States, 361 U. S. 212, 215 (1960)). We have also said, construing the Hobbs Act in Enmons, supra, at 411:
“Even if the language and history of the Act were less clear than we have found them to be, the Act could not properly be expanded as the Government suggests—for two related reasons. First, this being a criminal statute, it must be strictly construed, and any ambiguity must be resolved in favor of lenity” (citations omitted).
We think that these two seemingly antithetical statements can be reconciled. Culbert refused to adopt the view that Congress had not exercised the full extent of its commerce power in prohibiting extortion which “affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce.” But there is no contention by petitioners here that their acts did not affect interstate commerce. Their argument is that
Because we find that petitioners did not obtain or attempt to obtain property from respondents, we conclude that there was no basis upon which to find that they committed extortion under the Hobbs Act.
The jury also found that petitioners had committed extortion under various state-law extortion statutes, a separate RICO predicate offense. Petitioners challenged the jury instructions as to these on appeal, but the Court of Appeals held that any error was harmless, because the Hobbs Act verdicts were sufficient to support the relief awarded. Respondents argue in this Court that state extortion offenses do not have to be identical to Hobbs Act extortion to be predicate offenses supporting a RICO violation. They concede, however, that for a state offense to be an “act or threat involving . . . extortion, . . . which is chargeable under State law,” as RICO requires, see
This concession is in accord with our decisions in Nardello and Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575 (1990). In Nardello, we held that the Travel Act‘s prohibition,
Because petitioners did not obtain or attempt to obtain respondents’ property, both the state extortion claims and the claim of attempting or conspiring to commit state extortion were fatally flawed. The 23 violations of the Travel Act and 23 acts of attempting to violate the Travel Act also fail. These acts were committed in furtherance of allegedly extortionate conduct. But we have already determined that petitioners did not commit or attempt to commit extortion.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Reversed.
JUSTICE GINSBURG, with whom JUSTICE BREYER joins, concurring.
I join the Court‘s opinion, persuaded that the Seventh Circuit‘s decision accords undue breadth to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO or Act). As JUSTICE STEVENS recognizes, “Congress has enacted specific legislation responsive to the concerns that gave rise to these cases.” Post, at 417 (dissenting opinion). In the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994,
RICO, which empowers both prosecutors and private enforcers, imposes severe criminal penalties and hefty civil lia-
*At oral argument, the Government was asked: “[D]o you agree that your interpretation would have been applicable to the civil rights sit-ins?” Tr. of Oral Arg. 25. The Solicitor General responded: “Under some circumstances, it could have if illegal force or threats were used to prevent a business from operating.” Ibid.
JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
The term “extortion” as defined in the Hobbs Act refers to “the obtaining of property from another.”
For decades federal judges have uniformly given the term “property” an expansive construction that encompasses the intangible right to exercise exclusive control over the lawful use of business assets. The right to serve customers or to solicit new business is thus a protected property right. The use of violence or threats of violence to persuade the owner of a business to surrender control of such an intangible right is an appropriation of control embraced by the term “obtaining.” That is the commonsense reading of the statute that other federal judges have consistently and wisely embraced in numerous cases that the Court does not discuss or even cite. Recognizing this settled definition of property, as I believe one must, the conclusion that petitioners obtained this property from respondents is amply supported by the evidence in the record.
“The application of the Hobbs Act to the present facts of this case has been seriously challenged by the appellants upon the ground that the Government‘s evidence indicates that no ‘property’ was extorted and that there was no interference or attempted interference with interstate commerce. They assert that nothing more than ‘the right to do business’ in the Milford area was surrendered by Caron and that such a right was not ‘property’ ‘obtained’ by the appellants, as those terms are used in the Act. While they concede that rubbish removal accounts which are purchased and sold are probably property, they argue that the right to solicit business is amorphous and cannot be squared with the Congressional expression in the Act of ‘obtaining property.’ The Hobbs Act ‘speaks in broad language, manifesting a purpose to use all the constitutional power Congress has to punish interference with interstate commerce by extortion, robbery or physical violence.’ Stirone v. United States, 361 U. S. 212, 215 (1960). The concept of property under the Hobbs Act, as devolved from its legislative history and numerous decisions, is not limited to physical or tangible property or things (United States v. Provenzano, 334 F. 2d 678 (3d Cir. 1964); United States v. Nedley, 255 F. 2d 350 (3d Cir. 1958)), but includes, in a broad sense, any valuable right considered as a source or element of wealth (Bianchi v. United States, 219 F. 2d 182 (8th Cir. 1955)), and does not depend upon a direct benefit being conferred on the
person who obtains the property (United States v. Green, 350 U. S. 415 (1956)).
“Obviously, Caron had a right to solicit business from anyone in any area without any territorial restrictions by the appellants and only by the exercise of such a right could Caron obtain customers whose accounts were admittedly valuable. . . . The right to pursue a lawful business including the solicitation of customers necessary to the conduct of such business has long been recognized as a property right within the protection of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution (Louis K. Ligget Co. v. Baldridge, 278 U. S. 105 (1928); cf., Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 465 (1921)). . . . Caron‘s right to solicit accounts in Milford, Connecticut constituted property within the Hobbs Act definition.” Id., at 1075-1076 (some citations omitted).
The Tropiano case‘s discussion of obtaining property has been cited with approval by federal courts in virtually every circuit in the country. See, e. g., United States v. Hathaway, 534 F. 2d 386, 396 (CA1 1976); United States v. Arena, 180 F. 3d 380, 392 (CA2 1999); Northeast Women‘s Center, Inc. v. McMonagle, 868 F. 2d 1342, 1350 (CA3 1989); United States v. Santoni, 585 F. 2d 667, 673 (CA4 1978); United States v. Nadaline, 471 F. 2d 340, 344 (CA5 1973); United States v. Debs, 949 F. 2d 199, 201 (CA6 1991); United States v. Lewis, 797 F. 2d 358, 364 (CA7 1986); United States v. Zemek, 634 F. 2d 1159, 1174 (CA9 1980).1 Its interpretation
The courts that have considered the applicability of the Hobbs Act to attempts to disrupt the operations of abortion clinics have uniformly adhered to the holdings of cases like Tropiano. See, e. g., Libertad v. Welch, 53 F. 3d 428, 438, n. 6 (CA1 1995); Northeast Women‘s Center, Inc. v. McMonagle, 868 F. 2d, at 1350; United States v. Anderson, 716 F. 2d 446, 447-450 (CA7 1983). Judge Kearse‘s endorsement of the Government‘s position in United States v. Arena, 180 F. 3d 380 (CA2 1999), followed this consistent line of cases. The jury had found that the defendants had engaged in “an overall strategy to cause abortion providers, particularly Planned Parenthood and Yoffa, to give up their property
business accounts and unrealized profits). . . . Cf. United States v. Hathaway, 534 F. 2d 386, 395 (1st Cir.) (rejection of narrow perception of ‘property‘); Battaglia v. United States, 383 F. 2d 303 (9th Cir. 1967) (right to lease space in bowling alley free from threats). . . . Chase‘s right to solicit business free from threatened destruction and physical harm falls within the scope of protected property rights under the Hobbs Act. “Evidence of the previously described acts of intimidation and violence suffices. Appellants’ objective was to induce Chase to give up a lucrative business. The fact that their threats were unsuccessful does not preclude conviction.” United States v. Zemek, 634 F. 2d, at 1174 (some citations omitted). None of the cases following United States v. Tropiano, 418 F. 2d 1069 (CA2 1969), even considered the novel suggestion that this method of obtaining control of intangible property amounted to nothing more than the nonfederal misdemeanor of “coercion,” see ante, at 405 (majority opinion); ante, at 411 (GINSBURG, J., concurring).
“[P]roperty may be tangible or intangible, and the property at issue here was the intangible right to conduct business free from threats of violence and physical harm. . . . A perpetrator plainly may ‘obtai[n]’ property without receiving anything, for obtaining includes ‘attain[ing] . . . disposal of,’ Webster‘s Third New International Dictionary 1559 (1976); and ‘disposal’ includes ‘the regulation of the fate . . . of something,’ id. at 655. Thus, even when an extortionist has not taken possession of the property that the victim has relinquished, she has nonetheless ‘obtain[ed]’ that property if she has used violence to force her victim to abandon it. The fact that the target of a threat or attack may have refused to relinquish his property does not lessen the extortionist‘s liability under the Hobbs Act, for the Act, by its terms, also reaches attempts. See
18 U. S. C. § 1951(a) ; McLaughlin v. Anderson, 962 F. 2d 187, 194 (2d Cir. 1992).“In sum, where the property in question is the victim‘s right to conduct a business free from threats of violence and physical harm, a person who has committed or threatened violence or physical harm in order to induce abandonment of that right has obtained, or attempted to obtain, property within the meaning of the Hobbs Act.” Id., at 394.
In my opinion Judge Kearse‘s analysis of the issue is manifestly correct. Even if the issue were close, however, three additional considerations provide strong support for her conclusion. First, the uniform construction of the statute that has prevailed throughout the country for decades should remain the law unless and until Congress decides to amend the
I respectfully dissent.