Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has granted corporations full rights of citizenship under the 1st Amendment, why not grant our corporate brethren full emancipation?
Citizenship involves not just the sweets, such as free speech and now the unfettered right to write corporate checks to influence elections. But corporate American must accept the sour as well, including personal rather than corporate tax rates, jury duty, registration for the military draft and -- last but not least - full exposure to criminal penalties under the law.
Regarding the latter, amidst all of the angst over the high court's controversial 5-4 decision, Citizens United vs. FEC, I've not heard anyone explain why corporations in this brave new world of artificial person-hood should continue to enjoy immunity for their criminal wrongdoings.
As Wikipedia explains it, "In the criminal law, corporate liability determines the extent to which a corporation as a fictitious person can be liable for the acts and omissions of the natural persons it employs." (emphasis added)
"A company has no physical existence, so it can only act vicariously through the agency of the human beings it employs. While it is relatively uncontroversial that human beings may commit crimes for which punishment is a just desert, the extent to which the corporation should incur liability is less clear. Obviously, a company cannot be sent to jail...."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_liability
Obviously,this is true in the normal sense, no matter how tempting it might be to move the corporate offices of Goldman Sachs to Alcatraz. Still, the idea is tempting since I'm sure President Obama would be glad to waive his pledge to close down Guantanamo Bay if that terrorist compound could be re-incorporated as "The Walls" for Wall Street felons..
But seriously, now that felonious corporations are no longer "fictitious persons" in terms of electoral politics, why shouldn't they also be subject to the same law and order justice the rest of us would have to face if we swindled our fellows, robbed our retirees, attempted murder on our economy?
Maybe you can't lock up Halliburton but you certainly could lock it down: turn off the lights and utilities, padlock the doors, furlough the employees and remove it from the world of commerce for 15 to 25 subject to parole.
And for those Wall Street banks and investment funds which attempted murder on our financial system, why shouldn't there be a Corporate Death Row where butcher businesses are sent to die? Businesses die all the time, from natural causes. We'd just be making sure that the "worst of the worst" of these corporate terrorists never get to strike again.
Now I'm not a lawyer and Wikipedia isn't exactly a recognized source for legal research, so if there are attorneys out there who can discuss this idea more intelligently, please chime in by leaving a comment. Are criminal corporations under terms of the new Supreme Court ruling still too big to jail, too fictitious to impale on the sword of justice?
For an insightful discussion on this ruling, check out this transcript of Friday's edition of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01292010/transcript4.html
-- David Lore