legal trend--guilt shifted from corporations to employees!

[ttweed@wildrockies.org (Tony Tweedale)]

  sorry for cross posts ... pls repost to appropriate lists & indiv's.
  
  _wsj_  3 october 97 legal column 'More Firms Let Employees Take the Rap'
  (p. b3) reports that the '91 corporate sentencing guidelines ('..which
  sharply increased fines for corporations but also offered leniency to
  companies that, among other steps, apply "adequate disipline" to
  responsible employees.') are pushing u.s. prosecutors to plea bargain w/
  officers in criminal corporate cases (many of which are env. crimes, incl.
  the one featured here) to pin the heavy charges on employees!  when i took
  business law--undegraduate only--i recall the common principle being that
  employees most always (short of the gross negligence standard, complete
  failure of boss's knowing, etc.) are agents of the company, or their acts
  otherwise are linked to the corporation &/or top management/the board.
  it's both immoral (when top dogs are in the know of the crime, as so often
  is the case, as in this case, involving illegal discharge of blood into a
  river & falsification of the paper trail) & stupid (deep pockets) to get
  officers off by pleads that implicate employees!   why not reverse it; plea
  bargain employees to establish--when it's true--that top management &/or
  the board knew/participated/covered it up, etc.?!  ' "Why do prosecutors
  have to destroy lives when they could have just gone after the company?" Mr
  Hanley [defense attny] says.'
  
  
  tony tweedale