A Nation of the Corporations, by the Corporations, for the Corporations

Posted by Jill Hussein C., Brilliant at Breakfast at 10:08 AM on April 9, 2008.

If you're an American corporation, you no longer have to worry about trials for wrongdoing. Under Michael Mukasey's justice department, justice is an admonition, a wink, and a handshake:

In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years.

Instead, many companies, from boutique outfits to immense corporations like American Express, have avoided the cost and stigma of defending themselves against criminal charges with a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, which allows the government to collect fines and appoint an outside monitor to impose internal reforms without going through a trial. In many cases, the name of the monitor and the details of the agreement are kept secret.

Deferred prosecutions have become a favorite tool of the Bush administration. But some legal experts now wonder if the policy shift has led companies, in particular financial institutions now under investigation for their roles in the subprime mortgage debacle, to test the limits of corporate anti-fraud laws.

Firms have readily agreed to the deferred prosecutions, said Vikramaditya S. Khanna, a law professor at the University of Michigan who has studied their use, because "clearly it avoids a bigger headache for them."

Some lawyers suggest that companies may be willing to take more risks because they know that, if they are caught, the chances of getting a deferred prosecution are good. "Some companies may bear the risk" of legally questionable business practices if they believe they can cut a deal to defer their prosecution indefinitely, Mr. Khanna said.

Legal experts say the tactic may have sent the wrong signal to corporations -- the promise, in effect, of a get-out-of-jail-free card. The growing use of deferred prosecutions also suggests one road map the Justice Department might follow in the subprime mortgage investigations.

Gee, ya think?

It's interesting how you haven't heard Republicans run on the "tough on crime" platform in a long time. You may see "Willie Horton"-type ads today, but instead of fearmongering about criminals, they're more likely to take the form of casting doubt on That Scary Dark-Skinned Candidate Who May Be A Muslim And Even If He Isn't His Pastor Is a Very Mean Guy. Fear of terrorism has been effective for them, as has fear and loathing of immigrants. But you haven't seen them connect either of their boogeymen of choice to murders and rapes and property crimes. They haven't had to, when they can connect them to the toppling of buildings and "taking your job."

But it's understandable that they'd be cautious about playing the crime card, because when you have this stern Republican history of "actions have consequences", combined with the special exemptions for corporations and other Friends of Republicans, pointing out this discrepancy might cause people to ask questions. And you can't have that.

Tagged as: corporate accountability, mukasey, deferred prosecutions

Jill Hussein C. blogs at Brilliant at Breakfast.