How could the law apply criminal sentencing to corporations?
June 23, 2015 6:47 AM Subscribe
Currently, if a company is found guilty of e.g. manslaughter (like by having knowing & reckless bad safety practices that result in worker deaths), the only penalties are civil — fines, injunctions, etc.
What would be a reasonable way to apply criminal procedure & sentencing (community service, probation, incarceration, death) to a corporation?
Preemptively, to keep things on topic & serious:
1. No discussion of whether "corporations are people". They are, in a purely legal sense, and that kind of discussion doesn't tend to help on a serious question.
2. There are already rules for "piercing the veil" to hold individuals separately liable, as well as use of companies as a front for a criminal enterprise (eg RICO). Unless discussing a proposed change in those rules, that's not on topic.
3. Assume for this question that we are talking about current criminal laws, with current sentencing guidelines for those crimes, and the prosecutor got a conviction. Feel free to pick any to use as an example, but this is about translating the existing sentence into something applicable to a corporation.
4. Any other procedural issues of criminal law are on topic. (Eg: corporations, unlike humans, do not have a right to appear pro se, and do not [generally speaking] have 5th amendment rights.)
5. If it could be obtained currently as a punishment under civil law, eg monetary penalties, injunctions, etc, it's probably not on topic. (Use your discretion.)
6. If not talking about US law, please specify clearly. Other countries' laws can be very different.
7. Assume you can change statute law, but not constitutions or treaties.
Preemptively, to keep things on topic & serious:
1. No discussion of whether "corporations are people". They are, in a purely legal sense, and that kind of discussion doesn't tend to help on a serious question.
2. There are already rules for "piercing the veil" to hold individuals separately liable, as well as use of companies as a front for a criminal enterprise (eg RICO). Unless discussing a proposed change in those rules, that's not on topic.
3. Assume for this question that we are talking about current criminal laws, with current sentencing guidelines for those crimes, and the prosecutor got a conviction. Feel free to pick any to use as an example, but this is about translating the existing sentence into something applicable to a corporation.
4. Any other procedural issues of criminal law are on topic. (Eg: corporations, unlike humans, do not have a right to appear pro se, and do not [generally speaking] have 5th amendment rights.)
5. If it could be obtained currently as a punishment under civil law, eg monetary penalties, injunctions, etc, it's probably not on topic. (Use your discretion.)
6. If not talking about US law, please specify clearly. Other countries' laws can be very different.
7. Assume you can change statute law, but not constitutions or treaties.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Hey, sorry, but this is chatfilter -- taz
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