What proof is required to satisfy RICO and VICAR's interstate-commerce elements, and must prosecutors prove that an enterprise's activities in fact affected interstate commerce or is it sufficient to prove that enterprise members engaged in a category of activity deemed to affect interstate commerce in the aggregate?

QUESTION PRESENTED The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) makes it a federal crime to participate in a criminal enterprise (most often, a local street gang) that is either “engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce.” 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c). The Violence in Aid of Racketeering Act (VICAR) prohibits murder and other violent acts committed in furtherance of such an enterprise. 18 U.S.C. § 1959. For decades, courts have been confused about the nature and level of proof required to satisfy RICO’s commerce-clause element, leading to a complex and multidimension circuit split. Some courts, like the Fifth Circuit in this case, hold that the government can obtain a RICO or VICAR conviction without proving that gang members actually engaged in or that their activities in fact affected interstate commerce at all. Instead—relying on the “aggregation of commerce” principle taken from cases examining the scope of federal jurisdiction under the Commerce Clause—those courts hold that RICO’s interstate-commerce element is automatically satisfied if gang members engaged in a broad class of activity that has been determined to affect interstate commerce in the aggregate. In other words, RICO and VICAR punish purely local gang crime, even when the government does not prove that the gang’s activities themselves affected interstate commerce. The question presented is: What proof is required to satisfy RICO and VICAR’s interstate-commerce elements, and, more specifically, must prosecutors prove that an enterprise’s activities in fact affected interstate commerce or is it sufficient to prove that ii enterprise members engaged in a category of activity deemed to affect interstate commerce in the aggregate? iii