Given the current state of affairs regarding corporate personhood, how long will it be before we find a corporation using the insanity defense?
Asked by
rojo (
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January 20th, 2014
We have the Supreme Court having declared that corporations are people and should have the same rights. There are two cases before them now with corporations asking for religious freedoms.
The company involved in the chemical spill in West Virginia, Freedom Industries has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection but could they not have claimed they were mentally incompetent and if so, how could we hold them liable in a court of law? How would you certify a corporations sanity or insanity? By words? By deeds? Are there those out there who would, for a price, be willing to state such? Will a case where a corporation claimed temporary insanity make its way to the Supreme Court eventually? What are the ramifications for real people?
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7 Answers
Ha! Good question. Don’t worry, it’ll happen some time.
The one I am waiting for: when a corporation is slapped with a paternity suit.
Shopco can count on me as a character witness in their insanity defense plea.
I could probably be pretty convincing for Sears, too, given my local outlets.
I think Facebook may be Bi-Polar. It’s all fun on the outside but when you get in there it’s all about drama and SPAM. Interesting question, I think there’s some validity there…
OXFAM just released a study showing that 85 people hold nearly 50% of all the wealth on Earth. This is because they have been able to use their vast wealth to buy governments around the world and rig the game so they always win.
The Republican 5 on the US Supreme Court, that claim the Founders meant “Corporations” when they wrote “people”—never mind that Wall Street and large multinational corporate entities outside the reviled British East India Company didn’t even exist in their. Republicans clearly believe that just 50% of everything is not nearly enough, and the FORTUNATE 85 need lots more, like maybe all of it so long as they richly reward the politicians who are their water carriers and police force.
It’ll happen as soon as a Corporation can be truly criminally prosecuted. Right now, though, the punishment is either monetary or a matter of redressing problems.
When the government can seize the Corporation in its entirety, and bound all employees and management to continue to operate it or face individual criminal prosecution, then a crime cane truly punished. And then some lawyer will come up with an insanity plea.
The monetary punishment, @zenvelo, is for getting caught, a decidedly acceptable risk when the crime was being considered, and amounts to some government getting a cut of the action. Business as usual, as it was in the beginning, is now . . . Mammon is God. What could be crazier.
I don’t disagree @Bill1939. SAC Capital viewed a $700 million fine as the cost of doing business.
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