Well, we all know the familiar repetitive life experiences from the movie Groundhog Day, or as I like to say it, Déjà vu All Over Again. DOJ emphasizes over and over the importance of prosecuting individuals for criminal conduct as the key means to deter future misconduct and ensure corporate accountability. Corporations argue that imposing significant fines against them only punishes shareholders and other stakeholders...
The Justice Department suffered a terrible blow to its reputation during the financial crash in 2008 to 2009 for failing to criminally prosecute those individuals responsible for the financial misconduct. It was one of the most devastating failures in DOJ history and stands as a stain against DOJ’s accomplishments in prosecuting white collar crime. The failure to prosecute stemmed from both a lack of will...
There are two types of deterrence – specific and general. Specific deterrence focuses on the risk of recidivism by the individual defendant. General deterrence is focused on preventing others from engaging in similar misconduct. Deterrence depends on three basic factors: certainty; severity and swiftness of punishment. The certainty of punishment is a significant factor for obvious reasons – if there is a little chance that...
The sentencing of criminal defendants continues to create controversy. There are so many categories of crime and ranges of punishment – the issue always calls for difficult judgments and inevitably results in vigorous debate. In this three-part series, I plan to examine some of the issues surrounding sentencing of white-collar defendants and deterrence. It is often presumed that stiff sentencing of white-collar defendants is an...
The political campaign season has included plenty of discussion surrounding reforming our criminal justice system, and in particular sentencing for drug offenses. We have not heard much discussion about white-collar criminal sentencing. There is a fair amount of controversy surrounding while collar criminal sentencing as well. Ever since the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Booker, in which the Supreme Court relegated the U.S....
I am pleased to announce the release by Corporate Compliance Insights of my new e-book: A Return to Common Sense: The Justice Department’s Latest Attempts to Deter Corporate Crime. You can download the book here. With the release of the Yates Memorandum, and the readjustment of FCPA prosecution priorities and strategies, the Department of Justice is in the throes of a significant policy change in...
