Committee Comments

The definition of "enterprise" in 22 O.S.Supp.1995, § 1402(2) is similar to the definition in the federal RICO statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4) (1988), except that the Oklahoma definition includes the additional phrase "involved in any lawful or unlawful project or undertaking." The United States Supreme Court stated in United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 583 (1981), that the prosecution was required to prove the existence of an enterprise that was "separate and apart from the pattern of [racketeering] activity in which it engages." The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals noted in United States v. Blinder, 10 F.3d 1468, 1473 (9th Cir. 1993), that there is a split in the federal circuits over whether this would require proof that the enterprise has an "ascertainable structure distinct from that inherent in the conduct of a pattern of racketeering activity" (citing United States v. Bledsoe, 674 F.2d 647, 665 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1040 (1982)), or would be satisfied even when "the enterprise was, in effect, no more than the sum of the predicate racketeering acts" (citing United States v. Bagaric, 706 F.2d 42, 55 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 840 (1983)).