5.60 - G. Corporate Indictments

• Jurisdiction: New York

G. Corporate Indictments

The law’s disbelief is suspended to the degree that it holds that a corporation may have criminal intent.

“Since a corporation acts by its officers and agents, their purposes, motives and intent are just as much those of the corporation as are the things done. If, for example, the indivisible, intangible essence or air which we term a corporation can level mountains, fill up valleys, lay down iron tracks, and run railroad cars on them, it can intend to do it, and can act therein as well viciously as virtuously.”

. . . .

“There is no more difficulty in imputing to a corporation a specific intent in criminal proceedings than in civil.”

. . . .

And this is the rule when the act is done by the agent in the course of his employment, although done wantonly or recklessly or against the express orders

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