Cite as: 509 U. S. 544 (1993)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
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 de-unlawful debt collection in violation of section 1962." 18 U. S. C. §§ 1963(a)(1)-(3).
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