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Home > Journals > Michigan Law Review > MLR > Volume 44 > Issue 3 (1945)

 

Abstract

In attempting to define the crime of extortion or blackmail, it must be pointed out at the outset that there is a technical crime known as extortion, which stems from the common law, and there is another statutory crime which may be called extortion or blackmail, this latter crime being what the lawyer and laymen usually refer to by the term blackmail. Extortion at common law was the unlawful taking by an officer, by color of his office, of any money or thing of value that was not due him, or more than was due, or before it was due. To state the case simply, if any tax official demanded taxes of a citizen before they were due, that official was guilty of extortion. A private citizen could not be guilty of this crime. The scope of that common law offense was enlarged by statute to include any obtaining by any person of property of another with his consent through a wrongful threat to do injury. And so by enlarging the scope of the common law offense a new statutory offense was in fact created. It is with this statutory offense, whether it is called extortion or blackmail, or even if it does not have a name, that this paper deals. There are many variations in the statutes defining this broader statutory offense, which the author will hereinafter refer to as blackmail. If the reader were to pick a few states at random and look up the law in those states, he would probably find that no two of them are alike in all their requirements. However, there are certain similarities in various of the state statutes which fit into certain patterns; and upon taking an overall view of all the statutes, modified categorizations may be set forth. It is the purpose of the author to present this overall picture by classifying and comparing the express language of the statutes of all the jurisdictions within the United States, interposing at times comments on the broad, and sometimes ambiguous language used by the legislators. The crime of extortion by a public official is not within the scope of this paper; neither are threats which are punishable even though no property is demanded.

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