If a corporation is convicted of a crime, who goes to jail?

[jg10003]

[lpbk2713]

1. A mail room clerk.

Or someone else equally expendable.

[Ocelot II]

2. Nobody, if just the corporation is convicted. It will be fined, possibly heavily,

and banks are likely to call loans and stop lending to it, so a conviction can be a corporation's death penalty. Its officers and directors will go to jail only if they are convicted for having committed crimes individually.

[uponit7771]

4. What about a decision the corporation made that led to deaths? tia

[Ocelot II]

5. Depends on whether that action constituted a statutory crime.

If not, it could still be liable for damages in a civil case.

[hookaleft]

3. This is what I found:

Does the Defendant Corporation Get Locked Up?

While that would be quite an interesting scene, corporations as whole can't be arrested or thrown in jail.

Although the government can file criminal charges against the company as whole, only individuals who committed crimes can be locked up. So if a company is indicted but its individual executives, officers, or employees are not, then don't expect anyone to go to prison if the company is convicted.

[EarlG]

6. But but but

I thought "Corporations are people, my friend!"

[ProfessorGAC]

7. A Bit Understated

There are elements to safety & environmental laws that put quite a burden on managers.
Many are written to the effect "if a manager knows or should have known ...".
It becomes incumbent on managers to know that those elements are well operating because the liability can be assigned as a result of both negligence & incompetence. That " should have known " is a tough standard.
I know this intimately because I was in management of a US multinational. We were reminded regularly what aspects could make us personally liable.
To be fair, prosecutors would not criminally charge the company, and throw me in jail if they were convicted.
They would indict me, too. We'd have to ask a lawyer if they could prosecute both defendants in the same trial.
Maybe in this hypothetical, I would get my own trial.
I know a guy who actually was convicted of an environmental offense. It was pretty egregious, but modest impact. He got fined big (had to take 2nd mortgage to pay the fine), and got 6 months probation. I don't recall if the company & he had separate trials. I looked up the info 6 or 7 years ago.

[Lovie777]

8. Per republicans . ...

Corporation are people too.

[WarGamer]

10. Corporations are, by definition... sometimes MILLIONS of people

There's no such thing as Johnny Exxon.

Exxon is sliced into BILLIONS of ownership pieces called shares. They're owned by everyone from school teachers to billionaires.

Having said that... a Corporation is NOT (should not be) a single entity who can donate to politicians, etc.

[WarGamer]

9. A Corporation can't commit a crime.

A corporation is a business full of individual people doing whatever job they do.

[Ocelot II]

11. The Department of Justice disagrees.

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal-fraud/legacy/2010/04/11/charging-corps.PDF

[WarGamer]

12. which jail cell does the Corporation go in? (lmao)

If you read deeper, they're really talking about criminal responsibility of the Corporation itself, like when a oil leak damages nature.

I know what you're aiming for... but it's not quite the same

[Ocelot II]

13. Jail isn't the only penalty for committing a crime.

Humans can be fined instead of imprisoned, depending on the penalty the legislature attaches to a particular crime (it can be a fine and prison, or a fine or prison), which doesn't make it any less of a crime. Since a corporation isn't a human person that can be imprisoned, the only possible penalty is financial. Large fines can bankrupt ("kill" ) a corporation.

[WarGamer]

15. You're right, of course...

But bankrupting a Corporation MEANS:

Bankrupting the shareholders, everyone from billionaires to school teachers and the employees.

A lot of people (not looking at you, btw) think that a Corporation is this ghost-like presence that gobbles up money and refuses to pay taxes.

A corporation is MILLIONS of people.

Be critical of the Hedge Funds and the CEO, the Board... but don't forget, AAPL isn't owned by Joe Apple. It's owned by people. It's owned by Pension Funds like CALPRS in California that invests money to pay pensions for school teachers, police officers and librarians.

I'm NOT in favor of massive Corporate Taxation.

Why?

Because Corporations don't PAY taxes.

They have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to remain profitable.

Taxes are a cost of doing business, just like employee payroll, overhead and investments.

So increased Corporate taxes will result in

1) Cuts to payroll, laying off people or canceling scheduled pay increases or bonuses.

2) Decreased share pricing, reducing the value of the investment for MILLIONS of Americans.

3) Increased consumer pricing.

I've said it here many times, tax the RICH PEOPLE. WHY tax the guy who owns 25 shares of AAPL? Shouldn't you go after the billionaire who owns 500,000 shares of AAPL?

Billionaires laugh at increased Corporate taxes, the cost will be spread out over the family of shareholders, employees and consumers.

[Ocelot II]

17. I'm not a knee-jerk corporation hater.

A corporation is nothing but a structure for organizing a business, and there can be very large ones and very small ones. I own stock in several corporations and I don't want them to go bankrupt. Before I retired I was employed by a very large corporation that did, in fact, go bankrupt, not from criminal prosecution but due to other economic factors - it was Chapter 11, not 7 (liquidation), fortunately - and while I managed to keep my job and the company did recover, many others were laid off and it was a very difficult time. I am very much aware of the consequences to a corporation of bankruptcy. The issue of taxation is very complex; but increasing corporate taxes will not necessarily result in layoffs for the simple reason that business expenses like wages and salaries are mostly deductible. Some tax experts have suggested that for that reason raising corporate taxes is an incentive for more hiring, not less.

[Ms. Toad]

14. You are confusing being charged with, and convicted of, a crime

with punishment for the crime.

In 2019 There were 118 organizations (corporations, partnerships, pension funds, and non-profits) convicted of federal crimes. https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/quick-facts/Organizational-Offenders_FY19.pdf

Once convicted, at least ast to federal crimes the organization is sentenced based on federal guidelines for sentencing organizations.

[WarGamer]

16. I was being flippant, because an "entity" can't commit a crime.

But the entity CAN be responsible for crimes.

Understand?

[Ocelot II]

18. The entity most certainly can commit a crime.

If the people who manage the corporation commit the crime for and on behalf of the corporation, the crime was committed by the corporation. The people themselves might also be guilty individually, depending on how the statute defines the crime, but the legal fiction that makes a corporation an entity separate from the humans that own and manage it also makes the corporation a possible defendant.

[WarGamer]

20. That's what I just said...

A Corporation can be held responsible for crimes committed by it's agents.

You're arguing semantics...

[Ocelot II]

22. What you said is that *an entity can't commit a crime*, which isn't correct.

[WarGamer]

23. Ok... don't believe ME then... how about this Lawyer/Educator?

https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/can-corporation-commit-crimes-7417.html

Corporations cannot act on their own; an agent of the corporation, such as a director or a board member, must act. When that agent acts in the scope of his employment, the corporation could be held liable for the agent’s acts. In addition to the elements of a particular crime, the prosecutor must prove the corporate agent’s actions were within the scope of the agent’s duties and were done for the specific intent of benefiting the corporation.



Like I said... sigh...

The Corporation can't COMMIT a crime but it's agents CAN and the Corporation can be held legally responsible.

I'm actually done with this. Have a great day!

[Ms. Toad]

19. Legally - an entity can commit a crime. n/t

[WarGamer]

21. semantics...

Yes, a Corporation can be held responsible for a crime committed by it's agents.

[Ms. Toad]

24. It is not semantics. It is the law.

You have two attorneys in this thread, at least one of whom worked in corporate law for more than a decade, telling you otherwise.