The Corporate Criminals' Immunity from Prosecution Act of 2008

from HuffPost:




Charlie Cray
The Corporate Criminals' Immunity from Prosecution Act of 2008
Posted April 10, 2008 | 01:42 PM (EST)




It's nice to see the NYTimes pick up on the Department of Justice's shift toward the use of deferred prosecutions of corporations in large corporate crime cases. As far as I know, they are the first major media outlet to do so.

The lack of coverage is pretty pathetic, considering that the issue has been hotly debated among corporate crime experts for years. For example, by the end of 2005 Justice had given so many corporations this "get out of jail free" card that the Corporate Crime Reporter issued a major report on the issue.

Under the policy federal prosecutors agree to never prosecute a corporation for a major crime (e.g. bribery, accounting fraud etc.), so long as the company agrees to help the feds identify the culpable individuals inside the firm.

The use of deferred prosecutions was originally intended only for small cases, so that prosecutors could spend the bulk of their time going after the big fish.

When asked to explain the Justice Department's shift, the common response has been that they don't want to be responsible for "causing another Andersen."

This bogus line has been thrown around by virtually every important white collar crime lawyer, and it's totally misleading.

For one, after Andersen employees were caught shredding Enron's documents, the firm was actually offered a deferred prosecution agreement before the feds decided to prosecute. So the policy was already in place. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charlie-cray/the-corporate-criminals-i_b_96073.html

The SCOTUS has ruled that corporations are "people," so if I have a little person inside of me that commits crimes and I benefit directly from those crimes and if investigators come to me and say, "We are investigating a major crime, such as bribery and accounting fraud, and suspect someone inside of you" and I say, "Have no fear! That person is inside of me!" and I let them pull that person out and haul off to the justice system while I keep the ill-gotten booty of that person's malfeasance while escaping accountability, then I'm in the clear?

Is that how this is suppose to go down?

And what keeps me from putting another little person inside of me to do this all over again?

Man! Isn't life in America grand!!! :D