NCJ Number
187498
Journal
American Criminal Law Review Volume: 37 Issue: 4 Dated: Fall 2000 Pages: 1239-1283
Editor(s)
Stacey E. Ostfeld
Date Published
2000
Length
45 pages
Annotation
Corporate criminal liability is a frequently debated subject and one issue that attracts much attention is whether a corporation should be at fault or culpable before liability is imposed and precisely what corporate fault or corporate culpability means.
Abstract
The article begins with some general considerations about corporate criminal liability, with emphasis on how vicarious liability is imposed on a corporation under the doctrine of respondeat superior for the wrongs of its employees and on the need to impose liability on a corporation to influence the behavior of its employees rather than simply increase sanctions on the employees themselves. The article then compares various corporate liability standards and considers the likely effects of corporate mens rea standards in relation to strict liability and certain negligence standards. Finally, the article compares strict liability and negligence and discusses solutions to the problem of imperfect corporate liability standards. The author concludes that reliance on corporate mens rea as a liability standard will generally be undesirable because corporate mens rea standards impose liability on a corporation only when harm is caused by its agents and a sufficient amount of information exists within a corporation to meet one of the mens rea standards. In addition, the author contends that strict liability, mens rea, and negligence are not optimum liability standards in the vast majority of corporate crimes and that a composite liability regime, one that mixes each of the liability standards, is likely to be the most desirable. 121 footnotes