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Common-Law Criminal Conspiracy as a Weapon against Corrupt Political Organizations

1948; University of Chicago Law School; Volume: 15; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1597976

1939-859X

Cybercrime and Law Enforcement Studies

and common-law invasions are pleaded in alternative causes of action as in the Sidis2 case, the same statutory policy seems to determine the result.It seems inescapable that the New York statute and decisions do not offer a clear-cut rationale for protection of privacy.Comprehensive protection against commercial use of some aspect of the personality has not been afforded.Relief is given for the use of a famous name in an unauthorized endorsement but the same name may be used with impunity in a biography, though not in a comic book.The difficulties of interpretation and the limits of protection suggest that common-law flexibility is better suited for the necessarily widely varied fact situations found in privacy actions. COMMON-LAW CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY AS A WEAPONAGAINST CORRUPT POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS Machine control over patronage has been the greatest barrier to the unseating of the self-perpetuating big-city political machine by the conventional election process.As a result, various oblique methods have been used in order to restore popular, democratic control.An example of one such method was the indictment for criminal conspiracy of Mayor McFeely of Hoboken, New Jersey.,It is proposed first to examine in what ways the members of this political machine overreached themselves and how this was turned into a weapon which helped drive the machine from power, and then to consider the desirability of using this weapon against other entrenched political machines.Mayor McFeely was an extreme example of the political boss.Although he never received a salary of over $5,ooo a year as Mayor, he amassed a fortune estimated at $3,000,000.2 "Tall, bald, and sour-faced, he did not even afford his subjects the dubious pleasure of watching him make public appearances.He made almost no speeches (his grammar was too bad), took no interest in parades, and rode around in a bullet-proof Cadillac .... Under his ruleHoboken taxes went sky-high, building almost ceased."sThe McFeely family had been in power so long that "the roster of the police department read like the fly-leaf of the family Bible."4After twenty-two years of McFeely's rule, public frustration finally found expression in an indictment for common-law criminal conspiracy s This indictment named the Mayor, the Director and Deputy Director of Public Safety, the Chief and Deputy Chief of Police, and other superior officers of the De-1 See text following note 29 supra; see also note 35 supra.