Now suppose a corporation engages in illegal activity while operating a coal mine. And that illegal activity leads to the death of 29 of its workers.
Here’s another sure bet ‑ that corporation will not be convicted of a crime. And it will not be punished.
The reality is that we live in a two-tier criminal justice system in America, with one level for corporations and one for living, breathing humans.
It’s a system that undermines deterrence and allows corporate criminals to inflict their damage ‑ pollution, corruption, fraud, worker and consumer injury and death ‑ unchecked.
The coal mine corporation is a real one, Massey Energy. In April 2010, a huge explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia killed 29 workers.
In December 2011, the U.S. Labor Department issued a 972-page report concluding that “unlawful policies and practices” were the “root cause of this tragedy.” The company had a long history of skirting the law and in the Upper Big Branch case kept two sets of books ‑ one for internal use, which identified workplace hazards at the mine, and one to show law enforcement, which didn’t.
