509 U.S. 544 (1993)

ALEXANDER
v.
UNITED STATES

No. 91-1526.

United States Supreme Court.

Argued January 12, 1993. Decided June 28, 1993. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

*545 Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which White, O'Connor, Scalia, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Souter, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 559. Kennedy, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Blackmun and Stevens, JJ., joined, and in Part II of which Souter, J., joined, post, p. 560.

*546 John H. Weston argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was G. Randall Garrou.

Solicitor General Starr argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Mueller, Deputy Solicitor General Bryson, and Paul J. Larkin, Jr.^[*]

Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court.

After a full criminal trial, petitioner Ferris J. Alexander, owner of more than a dozen stores and theaters dealing in sexually explicit materials, was convicted on, inter alia, 17 obscenity counts and 3 counts of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The obscenity convictions, based on the jury's findings that four magazines and three videotapes sold at several of petitioner's stores were obscene, served as the predicates for his three RICO convictions. In addition to imposing a prison term and fine, the District Court ordered petitioner to forfeit, pursuant to 18 U. S. C. § 1963 (1988 ed. and Supp. III), certain assets that were directly related to his racketeering activity as punishment for his RICO violations. Petitioner argues that this forfeiture violated the First and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution. We reject petitioner's *547 claims under the First Amendment but remand for reconsideration of his Eighth Amendment challenge.

Petitioner was in the so-called "adult entertainment" business for more than 30 years, selling pornographic magazines and sexual paraphernalia, showing sexually explicit movies, and eventually selling and renting videotapes of a similar nature. He received shipments of these materials at a warehouse in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where they were wrapped in plastic, priced, and boxed. He then sold his products through some 13 retail stores in several different Minnesota cities, generating millions of dollars in annual revenues. In 1989, federal authorities filed a 41-count indictment against petitioner and others, alleging, inter alia, operation of a racketeering enterprise in violation of RICO. The indictment charged 34 obscenity counts and 3 RICO counts, the racketeering counts being predicated on the obscenity charges. The indictment also charged numerous counts of tax evasion and related offenses that are not relevant to the questions before us.

Following a 4-month jury trial in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, petitioner was convicted of 17 substantive obscenity offenses: 12 counts of transporting obscene material in interstate commerce for the purpose of sale or distribution, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1465; and 5 counts of engaging in the business of selling obscene material, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1466 (1988 ed. and Supp. III). He also was convicted of 3 RICO offenses that were predicated on the obscenity convictions: one count of receiving and using income derived from a pattern of racketeering activity, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1962(a); one count of conducting a RICO enterprise, in violation of § 1962(c); and one count of conspiring to conduct a RICO enterprise, in violation of § 1962(d). As a basis for the obscenity and RICO convictions, the jury determined that four magazines and three videotapes were obscene. Multiple copies of these magazines and videos, which graphically depicted *548 a variety of "hard core" sexual acts, were distributed throughout petitioner's adult entertainment empire.

Petitioner was sentenced to a total of six years in prison, fined $100,000, and ordered to pay the cost of prosecution, incarceration, and supervised release. In addition to these punishments, the District Court reconvened the same jury and conducted a forfeiture proceeding pursuant to § 1963(a)(2). At this proceeding, the Government sought forfeiture of the businesses and real estate that represented petitioner's interest in the racketeering enterprise, § 1963(a) (2)(A), the property that afforded petitioner influence over that enterprise, § 1963(a)(2)(D), and the assets and proceeds petitioner had obtained from his racketeering offenses, §§ 1963(a)(1), (3). The jury found that petitioner had an interest in 10 pieces of commercial real estate and 31 current or former businesses, all of which had been used to conduct his racketeering enterprise. Sitting without the jury, the District Court then found that petitioner had acquired a variety of assets as a result of his racketeering activities. The court ultimately ordered petitioner to forfeit his wholesale and retail businesses (including all the assets of those businesses) and almost $9 million in moneys acquired through racketeering activity.^[1]

The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's forfeiture order. Alexander v. Thornburgh, 943 F. 2d 825 (CA8 1991). It rejected petitioner's argument that the application of RICO's forfeiture provisions constituted a prior restraint on speech and hence violated the First Amendment. Recognizing the well-established distinction between prior restraints and subsequent criminal punishments, the Court of Appeals found that the forfeiture here was "a criminal *549 penalty imposed following a conviction for conducting an enterprise engaged in racketeering activities," and not a prior restraint on speech. Id., at 834. The court also rejected petitioner's claim that RICO's forfeiture provisions are constitutionally overbroad, pointing out that the forfeiture order was properly limited to assets linked to petitioner's past racketeering offenses. Id., at 835. Lastly, the Court of Appeals concluded that the forfeiture order does not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishments" and "excessive fines." In so ruling, however, the court did not consider whether the forfeiture in this case was grossly disproportionate or excessive, believing that the Eighth Amendment "`does not require a proportionality review of any sentence less than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.' " Id., at 836 (quoting United States v. Pryba, 900 F. 2d 748, 757 (CA4), cert. denied, 498 U. S. 924 (1990)). We granted certiorari, 505 U. S. 1217 (1992).

Petitioner first contends that the forfeiture in this case, which effectively shut down his adult entertainment business, constituted an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech, rather than a permissible criminal punishment. According to petitioner, forfeiture of expressive materials and the assets of businesses engaged in expressive activity, when predicated solely upon previous obscenity violations, operates as a prior restraint because it prohibits future presumptively protected expression in retaliation for prior unprotected speech. Practically speaking, petitioner argues, the effect of the RICO forfeiture order here was no different from the injunction prohibiting the publication of expressive material found to be a prior restraint in Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U. S. 697 (1931). As petitioner puts it, see Brief for Petitioner 25, the forfeiture order imposed a complete ban on his future expression because of previous unprotected speech. We disagree. By lumping the forfeiture imposed in this case after a full criminal trial with an injunction enjoining future speech, petitioner stretches the term "prior *550 restraint" well beyond the limits established by our cases. To accept petitioner's argument would virtually obliterate the distinction, solidly grounded in our cases, between prior restraints and subsequent punishments.

The term "prior restraint" is used "to describe administrative and judicial orders forbidding certain communications when issued in advance of the time that such communications are to occur." M. Nimmer, Nimmer on Freedom of Speech § 4.03, p. 4-14 (1984) (emphasis added). Temporary restraining orders and permanent injunctions—i. e., court orders that actually forbid speech activities—are classic examples of prior restraints. See id., § 4.03, at 4-16. This understanding of what constitutes a prior restraint is borne out by our cases, even those on which petitioner relies. In Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, supra, we invalidated a court order that perpetually enjoined the named party, who had published a newspaper containing articles found to violate a state nuisance statute, from producing any future "malicious, scandalous or defamatory" publication. Id., at 706. Near, therefore, involved a true restraint on future speech—a permanent injunction. So, too, did Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U. S. 415 (1971), and Vance v. Universal Amusement Co., 445 U. S. 308 (1980) (per curiam), two other cases cited by petitioner. In Keefe, we vacated an order "enjoining petitioners from distributing leaflets anywhere in the town of Westchester, Illinois." 402 U. S., at 415 (emphasis added). And in Vance, we struck down a Texas statute that authorized courts, upon a showing that obscene films had been shown in the past, to issue an injunction of indefinite duration prohibiting the future exhibition of films that have not yet been found to be obscene. 445 U. S., at 311. See also New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U. S. 713, 714 (1971) (per curiam) (Government sought to enjoin publication of the Pentagon Papers).

By contrast, the RICO forfeiture order in this case does not forbid petitioner to engage in any expressive activities *551 in the future, nor does it require him to obtain prior approval for any expressive activities. It only deprives him of specific assets that were found to be related to his previous racketeering violations. Assuming, of course, that he has sufficient untainted assets to open new stores, restock his inventory, and hire staff, petitioner can go back into the adult entertainment business tomorrow, and sell as many sexually explicit magazines and videotapes as he likes, without any risk of being held in contempt for violating a court order. Unlike the injunctions in Near, Keefe, and Vance, the forfeiture order in this case imposes no legal impediment to—no prior restraint on—petitioner's ability to engage in any expressive activity he chooses. He is perfectly free to open an adult bookstore or otherwise engage in the production and distribution of erotic materials; he just cannot finance these enterprises with assets derived from his prior racketeering offenses.

The constitutional infirmity in nearly all of our prior restraint cases involving obscene material, including those on which petitioner and the dissent rely, see post, at 570-571, 577, was that the government had seized or otherwise restrained materials suspected of being obscene without a prior judicial determination that they were in fact so. See, e. g., Marcus v. Search Warrant of Kansas City, Mo., Property, 367 U. S. 717 (1961); Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58 (1963); Quantity of Copies of Books v. Kansas, 378 U. S. 205 (1964); Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U. S. 496 (1973); Vance, supra. In this case, however, the assets in question were ordered forfeited not because they were believed to be obscene, but because they were directly related to petitioner's past racketeering violations. The RICO forfeiture statute calls for the forfeiture of assets because of the financial role they play in the operation of the racketeering enterprise. The statute is oblivious to the expressive or nonexpressive nature of the assets forfeited; books, sports cars, narcotics, and cash are all forfeitable alike under RICO. *552 Indeed, a contrary scheme would be disastrous from a policy standpoint, enabling racketeers to evade forfeiture by investing the proceeds of their crimes in businesses engaging in expressive activity.

Nor were the assets in question ordered forfeited without according petitioner the requisite procedural safeguards, another recurring theme in our prior restraint cases. Contrasting this case with Fort Wayne Books, Inc. v. Indiana, 489 U. S. 46 (1989), aptly illustrates this point. In Fort Wayne Books, we rejected on constitutional grounds the pretrial seizure of certain expressive material that was based upon a finding of "no more than probable cause to believe that a RICO violation had occurred." Id., at 66 (emphasis in original). In so holding, we emphasized that there had been no prior judicial "determination that the seized items were `obscene' or that a RICO violation ha[d] occurred. " Ibid. (emphasis in original). "[M]ere probable cause to believe a legal violation ha[d] transpired," we said, "is not adequate to remove books or films from circulation." Ibid. Here, by contrast, the seizure was not premature, because the Government established beyond a reasonable doubt the basis for the forfeiture. Petitioner had a full criminal trial on the merits of the obscenity and RICO charges during which the Government proved that four magazines and three videotapes were obscene and that the other forfeited assets were directly linked to petitioner's commission of racketeering offenses.

Petitioner's claim that the RICO forfeiture statute operated as an unconstitutional prior restraint in this case is also inconsistent with our decision in Arcara v. Cloud Books, Inc., 478 U. S. 697 (1986). In that case, we sustained a court order, issued under a general nuisance statute, that closed down an adult bookstore that was being used as a place of prostitution and lewdness. In rejecting out-of-hand a claim that the closure order amounted to an improper prior restraint on speech, we stated:

*553 "The closure order sought in this case differs from a prior restraint in two significant respects. First, the order would impose no restraint at all on the dissemination of particular materials, since respondents are free to carry on their book selling business at another location, even if such locations are difficult to find. Second, the closure order sought would not be imposed on the basis of an advance determination that the distribution of particular materials is prohibited—indeed, the imposition of the closure order has nothing to do with any expressive conduct at all." Id., at 705-706, n. 2.

This reasoning applies with equal force to this case, and thus confirms that the RICO forfeiture order was not a prior restraint on speech, but a punishment for past criminal conduct. Petitioner attempts to distinguish Arcara on the ground that obscenity, unlike prostitution or lewdness, has "`a significant expressive element.' " Brief for Petitioner 16 (quoting Arcara, supra, at 706). But that distinction has no bearing on the question whether the forfeiture order in this case was an impermissible prior restraint.

Finally, petitioner's proposed definition of the term "prior restraint" would undermine the time-honored distinction between barring speech in the future and penalizing past speech. The doctrine of prior restraint originated in the common law of England, where prior restraints of the press were not permitted, but punishment after publication was. This very limited application of the principle of freedom of speech was held inconsistent with our First Amendment as long ago as Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233, 246 (1936). While we may have given a broader definition to the term "prior restraint" than was given to it in English common law,^[2] our decisions have steadfastly preserved the *554 distinction between prior restraints and subsequent punishments. Though petitioner tries to dismiss this distinction as "neither meaningful nor useful," Brief for Petitioner 29, we think it is critical to our First Amendment jurisprudence. Because we have interpreted the First Amendment as providing greater protection from prior restraints than from subsequent punishments, see Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S. 546, 558-559 (1975), it is important for us to delineate with some precision the defining characteristics of a prior restraint. To hold that the forfeiture order in this case constituted a prior restraint would have the exact opposite effect: It would blur the line separating prior restraints from subsequent punishments to such a degree that it would be impossible to determine with any certainty whether a particular measure is a prior restraint or not.

In sum, we think that fidelity to our cases requires us to analyze the forfeiture here not as a prior restraint, but under normal First Amendment standards. So analyzing it, we find that petitioner's claim falls well short of the mark. He does not challenge either his 6-year jail sentence or his $100,000 fine as violative of the First Amendment. The first inquiry that comes to mind, then, is why, if incarceration for six years and a fine of $100,000 are permissible forms of punishment under the RICO statute, the challenged forfeiture of certain assets directly related to petitioner's racketeering activity is not. Our cases support the instinct from which *555 this question arises; they establish quite clearly that the First Amendment does not prohibit either stringent criminal sanctions for obscenity offenses or forfeiture of expressive materials as punishment for criminal conduct.

We have in the past rejected First Amendment challenges to statutes that impose severe prison sentences and fines as punishment for obscenity offenses. See, e. g., Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U. S. 463, 464-465, n. 2 (1966); Smith v. United States, 431 U. S. 291, 296, n. 3 (1977); Fort Wayne Books, 489 U. S., at 59, n. 8. Petitioner does not question the holding of those cases; he instead argues that RICO's forfeiture provisions are constitutionally overbroad because they are not limited solely to obscene materials and the proceeds from the sale of such materials. Petitioner acknowledges that this is an unprecedented use of the overbreadth principle. See Brief for Petitioner 36. The "overbreadth" doctrine, which is a departure from traditional rules of standing, permits a defendant to make a facial challenge to an overly broad statute restricting speech, even if he himself has engaged in speech that could be regulated under a more narrowly drawn statute. See, e. g., Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601, 612-613 (1973); City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U. S. 789, 798-801 (1984). But the RICO statute does not criminalize constitutionally protected speech and therefore is materially different from the statutes at issue in our overbreadth cases. Cf., e. g., Board of Airport Comm'rs of Los Angeles v. Jews for Jesus, Inc., 482 U. S. 569, 574-575 (1987).

Petitioner's real complaint is not that the RICO statute is over broad, but that applying RICO's forfeiture provisions to businesses dealing in expressive materials may have an improper "chilling" effect on free expression by deterring others from engaging in protected speech. No doubt the monetarily large forfeiture in this case may induce cautious booksellers to practice self-censorship and remove marginally protected materials from their shelves out of fear that *556 those materials could be found obscene and thus subject them to forfeiture. But the defendant in Fort Wayne Books made a similar argument, which was rejected by the Court in this language:

"[D]eterrence of the sale of obscene materials is a legitimate end of state antiobscenity laws, and our cases have long recognized the practical reality that `any form of criminal obscenity statute applicable to a bookseller will induce some tendency to self-censorship and have some inhibitory effect on the dissemination of material not obscene.' " 489 U. S., at 60 (quoting Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 154-155 (1959)).

Fort Wayne Books is dispositive of any chilling argument here, since the threat of forfeiture has no more of a chilling effect on free expression than the threat of a prison term or a large fine. Each racketeering charge exposes a defendant to a maximum penalty of 20 years' imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000. 18 U. S. C. § 1963(a) (1988 ed. and Supp. III). See Brief for United States 19. Needless to say, the prospect of such a lengthy prison sentence would have a far more powerful deterrent effect on protected speech than the prospect of any sort of forfeiture. Cf. Blanton v. North Las Vegas, 489 U. S. 538, 542 (1989) (loss of liberty is a more severe form of punishment than any monetary sanction). Similarly, a fine of several hundred thousand dollars would certainly be just as fatal to most businesses—and, as such, would result in the same degree of self-censorship—as a forfeiture of assets. Yet these penalties are clearly constitutional under Fort Wayne Books.

We also have rejected a First Amendment challenge to a court order closing down an entire business that was engaged in expressive activity as punishment for criminal conduct. See Arcara, 478 U. S., at 707. Once again, petitioner does not question the holding of that case; in fact, he concedes that expressive businesses and assets can be forfeited *557 under RICO as punishment for, say, narcotic offenses. See Brief for Petitioner 11 ("[F]orfeiture of a media business purchased by a drug cartel would be constitutionally permissible"). Petitioner instead insists that the result here should be different because the RICO predicate acts were obscenity offenses. In Arcara, we held that criminal and civil sanctions having some incidental effect on First Amendment activities are subject to First Amendment scrutiny "only where it was conduct with a significant expressive element that drew the legal remedy in the first place, as in [United States v.] O'Brien, [391 U. S. 367 (1968),] or where a statute based on a nonexpressive activity has the inevitable effect of singling out those engaged in expressive activity, as in Minneapolis Star [& Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575 (1983)]." 478 U. S., at 706-707 (footnote omitted). Applying that standard, we held that prostitution and lewdness, the criminal conduct at issue in Arcara, involve neither situation, and thus concluded that the First Amendment was not implicated by the enforcement of a general health regulation resulting in the closure of an adult bookstore. Id., at 707. Under our analysis in Arcara, the forfeiture in this case cannot be said to offend the First Amendment. To be sure, the conduct that "drew the legal remedy" here—racketeering committed through obscenity violations—may be "expressive," see R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 385 (1992), but our cases clearly hold that "obscenity" can be regulated or actually proscribed consistent with the First Amendment, see, e. g., Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 485 (1957); Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 23 (1973).

Confronted with our decisions in Fort Wayne Books and Arcara —neither of which he challenges—petitioner's position boils down to this: Stiff criminal penalties for obscenity offenses are consistent with the First Amendment; so is the forfeiture of expressive materials as punishment for criminal conduct; but the combination of the two somehow results *558 in a violation of the First Amendment. We reject this counterintuitive conclusion, which in effect would say that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Petitioner also argues that the forfeiture order in this case—considered atop his 6-year prison term and $100,000 fine—is disproportionate to the gravity of his offenses and therefore violates the Eighth Amendment, either as a "cruel and unusual punishment" or as an "excessive fine."^[3] Brief for Petitioner 40. The Court of Appeals, though, failed to distinguish between these two components of petitioner's Eighth Amendment challenge. Instead, the court lumped the two together, disposing of them both with the general statement that the Eighth Amendment does not require any proportionality review of a sentence less than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. 943 F. 2d, at 836. But that statement has relevance only to the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. Unlike the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, which is concerned with matters such as the duration or conditions of confinement, "[t]he Excessive Fines Clause limits the government's power to extract payments, whether in cash or in kind, as punishment for some offense." Austin v. United States, post, at 609-610 (emphasis and internal quotation marks omitted); accord, Browning-Ferris Industries of Vt., Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 492 U. S. 257, 265 (1989) ("[A]t the time of the drafting and ratification of the [Eighth] Amendment, the word `fine' was understood to mean a payment to a sovereign as punishment for some offense"); id., at 265, n. 6. The in personam criminal forfeiture at issue here is clearly a form of monetary punishment no different, for Eighth Amendment purposes, from a traditional "fine." Accord, *559 Austin, supra.[4] Accordingly, the forfeiture in this case should be analyzed under the Excessive Fines Clause.

Petitioner contends that forfeiture of his entire business was an "excessive" penalty for the Government to exact "[o]n the basis of a few materials the jury ultimately decided were obscene." Brief for Petitioner 40. It is somewhat misleading, we think, to characterize the racketeering crimes for which petitioner was convicted as involving just a few materials ultimately found to be obscene. Petitioner was convicted of creating and managing what the District Court described as "an enormous racketeering enterprise." App. to Pet. for Cert. 160. It is in the light of the extensive criminal activities which petitioner apparently conducted through this racketeering enterprise over a substantial period of time that the question whether the forfeiture was "excessive" must be considered. We think it preferable that this question be addressed by the Court of Appeals in the first instance.

For these reasons, we hold that RICO's forfeiture provisions, as applied in this case, did not violate the First Amendment, but that the Court of Appeals should have considered whether they resulted in an "excessive" penalty within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment's Excessive Fines Clause. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Souter, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

I agree with the Court that petitioner has not demonstrated that the forfeiture at issue here qualifies as a prior restraint as we have traditionally understood that term. I *560 also agree with the Court that the case should be remanded for a determination whether the forfeiture violated the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment. Nonetheless, I agree with Justice Kennedy that the First Amendment forbids the forfeiture of petitioner's expressive material in the absence of an adjudication that it is obscene or otherwise of unprotected character, and therefore I join Part II of his dissenting opinion.

Justice Kennedy, with whom Justice Blackmun and Justice Stevens join, and with whom Justice Souter joins as to Part II, dissenting.

The Court today embraces a rule that would find no affront to the First Amendment in the Government's destruction of a book and film business and its entire inventory of legitimate expression as punishment for a single past speech offense. Until now I had thought one could browse through any book or film store in the United States without fear that the proprietor had chosen each item to avoid risk to the whole inventory and indeed to the business itself. This ominous, onerous threat undermines free speech and press principles essential to our personal freedom.

Obscenity laws would not work unless an offender could be arrested and imprisoned despite the resulting chill on his own further speech. But, at least before today, we have understood state action directed at protected books or other expressive works themselves to raise distinct constitutional concerns. The Court's decision is a grave repudiation of First Amendment principles, and with respect I dissent.

I

A

The majority believes our cases "establish quite clearly that the First Amendment does not prohibit either stringent criminal sanctions for obscenity offenses or forfeiture of expressive materials as punishment for criminal conduct." *561 Ante, at 555. True, we have held that obscenity is expression which can be regulated and punished, within proper limitations, without violating the First Amendment. See, e. g., New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747 (1982); Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15 (1973); Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U. S. 49, 57-58 (1973); Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476 (1957). And the majority is correct to note that we have upheld stringent fines and jail terms as punishments for violations of the federal obscenity laws. See Fort Wayne Books, Inc. v. Indiana, 489 U. S. 46, 60 (1989); Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U. S. 463, 464-465, n. 2 (1966). But that has little to do with the destruction of protected titles and the facilities for their distribution or publication. None of our cases address that matter, or it would have been unnecessary for us to reserve the specific question four Terms ago in Fort Wayne Books, Inc. v. Indiana, supra, at 60, 65.

The fundamental defect in the majority's reasoning is a failure to recognize that the forfeiture here cannot be equated with traditional punishments such as fines and jail terms. Noting that petitioner does not challenge either the 6-year jail sentence or the $100,000 fine imposed against him as punishment for his convictions under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), the majority ponders why RICO's forfeiture penalty should be any different. See ante, at 554. The answer is that RICO's forfeiture penalties are different from traditional punishments by Congress' own design as well as in their First Amendment consequences.

The federal RICO statute was passed to eradicate the infiltration of legitimate business by organized crime. Pub. L. 91-452, Title IX, 84 Stat. 941, as amended, 18 U. S. C. §§ 1961-1968 (1988 ed. and Supp. III). Earlier steps to combat organized crime were not successful, in large part because traditional penalties targeted individuals engaged in racketeering activity rather than the criminal enterprise itself. Punishing racketeers with fines and jail terms failed to *562 break the cycle of racketeering activity because the criminal enterprises had the resources to replace convicted racketeers with new recruits. In passing RICO, Congress adopted a new approach aimed at the economic roots of organized crime:

"What is needed here . . . are new approaches that will deal not only with individuals, but also with the economic base through which those individuals constitute such a serious threat to the economic well-being of the Nation. In short, an attack must be made on their source of economic power itself, and the attack must take place on all available fronts." S. Rep. No. 91-617, p. 79 (1969).

Criminal liability under RICO is premised on the commission of a "pattern of racketeering activity," defined by the statute as engaging in two or more related predicate acts of racketeering within a 10-year period. 18 U. S. C. § 1961(5). A RICO conviction subjects the violator not only to traditional, though stringent, criminal fines and prison terms, but also mandatory forfeiture under § 1963.^[*] It is the mandatory forfeiture penalty that is at issue here.

*563 While forfeiture remedies have been employed with increasing frequency in civil proceedings, forfeiture remedies and penalties are the subject of historic disfavor in our country. Although in personam forfeiture statutes were well grounded in the English common law, see Calero-Toledo v. Pearson Yacht Leasing Co., 416 U. S. 663, 682-683 (1974), in personam criminal forfeiture penalties like those authorized under § 1963 were unknown in the federal system until the enactment of RICO in 1970. See 1 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 125.1, p. 389 (2d ed. 1982). Section 1963's forfeiture penalties are novel for their punitive character as well as for their unprecedented sweep. Civil in rem forfeiture is limited in application to contraband and articles put to unlawful use, or in its broadest reach, to proceeds traceable to unlawful activity. See United States v. Parcel of Land, Rumson, N. J., 507 U. S. 111, 118-123 (1993); The Palmyra, 12 Wheat. 1, 14-15 (1827). Extending beyond contraband or its traceable proceeds, RICO mandates the forfeiture of property constituting the defendant's "interest in the racketeering enterprise" and property affording the violator a "source of influence" over the RICO enterprise. 18 U. S. C. § 1963(a) (1988 ed. and Supp. III). In a previous decision, we acknowledged the novelty of RICO's penalty scheme, stating that Congress passed RICO to provide "new weapons of unprecedented scope for an assault upon organized crime and its economic roots." Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 26 (1983).

As enacted in 1970, RICO targeted offenses then thought endemic to organized crime. 18 U. S. C. § 1961(1). When RICO was amended in 1984 to include obscenity as a predicate offense, there was no comment or debate in Congress on the First Amendment implications of the change. Act of Oct. 12, 1984, Pub. L. 98-473, 98 Stat. 2143. The consequence of adding a speech offense to a statutory scheme designed *564 to curtail a different kind of criminal conduct went far beyond the imposition of severe penalties for obscenity offenses. The result was to render vulnerable to Government destruction any business daring to deal in sexually explicit materials. The unrestrained power of the forfeiture weapon was not lost on the Executive Branch, which was quick to see in the amended statute the means and opportunity to move against certain types of disfavored speech. The Attorney General