This is the Introduction to Stetson University's College of Law Symposium Issue on Corporate Criminal Liability. The papers from this symposium came from a discussion forum held as part of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) conference. This Introduction provides an overview of corporate criminal liability and also a roadmap of the papers that are part of this volume.

This is the Introduction to the Symposium issue of the Journal of Law, Economics and Policy on Overcriminalization 2.0. This introduction sets the stage of the overcriminalization movement and provides a roadmap of the papers in this volume.

Despite the fact that Twitter did not exist when the term “white collar crime” was coined in 1939, it is an interesting exercise to highlight the last 100 years of white collar criminal activity using “tweets.” In so doing, this Essay tries to capture some of the key events that have been prominent in the white collar world.

This Essay first examines corporate criminal liability, looks next at individual liability, and then discusses key statutes and crimes that have been used in the prosecution of white collar criminal activity. In this regard, mail fraud, RICO, and perjury are examined. Sentencing issues and how they have influenced the treatment of white collar crime are tweeted. The ultimate goal of this fictional presentation is to demonstrate a historical overview of white collar crime happenings and is so doing evaluate its progression over time.

In the criminal area, discovery violations are a continual concern. Recently, the Department of Justice (DOJ) was caught with discovery violations that reflected prosecutorial misconduct and improprieties. To its credit, the DOJ issued three Memos that sought to affirmatively promote office compliance with discovery obligations. The three Memos of former Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, however, fall short in an important area, discovery for defendants prior to entering into plea agreements.

This Essay places this discussion in the backdrop of existing legal scholarship and existing precedent, most importantly the Supreme Court opinion in United States v. Ruiz, that provides little support for mandating discovery to defendants prior to entering into a plea agreement. Protecting the importance of a voluntary and knowing plea cannot be overlooked in assuring an efficient system of justice. Unique concerns are also noted when the government is entering into a deferred prosecution agreement with a corporation or other entity. This Essay advocates for a more forceful response than merely having DOJ guidelines to remedy discovery violations that may influence the entering of a plea.

This Essay examines the role of the ABA Criminal Justice Standards: The Prosecution and Defense Function Standards, looking at language when initially drafted to language being considered in the proposed fourth edition. It focuses on the preliminary sections of the Standards that outline the intended role of the Standards and considers how courts have used these Standards in court decisions. It also notes how the Standards serve a hortatory role, providing internal guidance to prosecutors and defense counsel. An overriding question is whether these Standards serve a legitimate function in the criminal justice process?

Placing the question of the role of the Standards in a specific context, this Essay examines the drafters’ approach to jury selection and specifically to peremptory strikes based on sexual orientation. The drafters’ failure to explicitly include “sexual orientation” as an impermissible category for peremptory strikes of jurors, leaves the Standards merely endorsing existing constitutional criteria, which raises the question of whether the Standards have any purpose. This Essay advocates against the approach taken by the drafters, as it offers little advancement in the law and perpetuates existing bias. As hortatory standards, it is unnecessary to limit the rules to existing law. More importantly, by failing to expand the category of impermissible peremptory challenges, it is a missed opportunity to offer progressive legal reform.

The infiltration of politics in the Department of Justice (DOJ) is the discussion in four recent oversight reports. Commentators and scholars have responded with varying solutions to ensure these mistakes will not be repeated.

This Essay looks at politicization in DOJ from a different angle. It focuses first on the importance of maintaining political neutrality in DOJ and then stresses the need to examine structural changes in the criminal justice process that will minimize the ability to have decisions that might be politicized or might suggest an appearance of being politicized. Instead of focusing only on corrections to alleviate politicization in the federal criminal justice system, the focus also needs to look at overcriminalization, the breadth or many criminal statutes, the increased lack of mens rea required in criminal offenses, and the ability of prosecutors to use “short-cut” offenses to proceed with charges with relatively little proof. Conquering systemic problems accruing from an overcriminalized system will assure that decision-making is consistent and not a product of a prosecutor’s personal preferences. Thus, even if politicization should again enter into the DOJ, limited power in decisionmaking would avoid any possible problems that might accrue from the appearance or reality of having politically connected decisionmakers.