WHEN THE STATE of Georgia indicted 61 Stop Cop City activists on racketeering charges last year, it mangled the meaning of “racketeering” beyond recognition. In the indictment, prosecutors cited typical social justice activities, such as “mutual aid,” writing “zines,” and “collectivism,” as proof of criminal conspiracy and raising money for protest signs as grounds for money laundering charges. Just as it seemed that Georgia Republicans couldn’t push the state’s broad Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, statute any further, GOP state senators introduced a bill on Friday that would significantly expand the reach of the Georgia RICO law, with blatantly repressive designs. MOST READ Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Caught on Secret Audio Deconstructed Inside the Nuseirat Massacre: This Is the Carnage I Saw During Israel’s Hostage Rescue Shrouq Aila Imran Khan Remains Imprisoned Over His Wife’s Menstrual Cycles. State Department Says That’s “Something For the Pakistani Courts to Decide.” Ryan Grim, Murtaza Hussain Former President Donald Trump and his allies currently face the highest profile RICO charges in Georgia for attempting to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s case, however, is a political outlier when it comes to the increased deployment of RICO charges in recent years, as it takes aim at a truly powerful cohort engaged in the very paradigm of conspiracy. While this is the purported intention of RICO laws — first introduced in 1970 to target mob bosses — recent uses of Georgia’s statute have involved casting Atlanta public school teachers as organized criminals for altering test scores and claiming that the lyrics of Black rap artists can indicate potential violent gang involvement. The newly introduced Senate Bill 359, or S.B. 359, sponsored by 10 Republican state senators, makes clear that the Georgia GOP intends to continue using RICO as a tool for sweeping criminalization and repressive prosecutions. The proposed law would include low-level misdemeanors, such as “loitering” and placing posters in unpermitted places, as crimes to which RICO charges and hefty enhanced penalties could apply. The bill also includes “political affiliation or belief” as a factor for enhanced penalties in certain circumstances.
