Court Opinion

ID: 9472531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:03:19.868141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:59.839322
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in the result reached by the majority and join in Judge Gibson’s dissenting opinion. I would go one step further and sustain payments to charitable foundations or educational institutions under the guidelines set forth below.
The present practice of punishing corporate crime with fines paid to the United States Treasury has done little to deter corporate crime. Once the payment is made to the Treasury, the public promptly forgets the transgression, and the corporation continues on its way, with its reputation only slightly tarnished by what it usually describes as a “highly technical violation.” On the other hand, if a corporation is required to fund a chair in corporate ethics at a distinguished university as a condition of probation, and if the chair is identified as one funded through an involuntary contribution, there is at the very least a strong probability that there will be an improvement in corporate conduct both in the near and long term. Probation conditions similar to those imposed here are used daily for individual defendants. These conditions are generally recognized as being effective in deterring crime and bringing benefits to the communities that have been harmed by the transgression.
We err greatly in shutting the door on probationary conditions of this nature for corporate defendants. To be sure, there are potential problems. The judge must be careful to avoid any conflicts of interest and must make sure that posterity will understand that the chair was established by court order to punish illegal and unethical conduct. But we give district court judges broad discretion in scheduling and trying cases. We are even more loath to interfere with their sentencing discretion, frequently sustaining sentences that we feel are entirely too long. Why then does the Justice Department and a majority of this Court insist on tying the hands of the district courts when it comes to imposing conditions of probation on corporate defendants, when the statutes do not require such restrictions? It seems to me that, in reality, we do so for two reasons: first, in a shortsighted effort to protect government revenues derived from criminal fines, and second, out of an inordinate fear that our district court judges will not have the wisdom to avoid possible conflicts of interest. Neither reason is sufficient for me.