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Criminal Affirmance: Going Beyond the Deterrence Paradigm to Examine the Social Meaning Expressed by Exercising Discretion to Decline Prosecution of Elite Crime

Criminal Affirmance: Going Beyond the Deterrence Paradigm to Examine the Social Meaning Expressed by Exercising Discretion to Decline Prosecution of Elite Crime


Professor Mary K. Ramirez*, Washburn University School of Law

*Professor Ramirez is a thirteen-year veteran of the Department of Justice, having worked as a Senior Trial Attorney with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas, and as a Trial Attorney for the DOJ Antitrust Division.

Abstract

Criminal Affirmance: Going Beyond the Deterrence Paradigm to Examine the Social Meaning Expressed by Exercising Discretion to Decline Prosecution of Elite Crime

Professor Mary Kreiner Ramirez

Article Abstract Recent financial scandals and the relative paucity of criminal prosecutions in response suggest a new reality in the criminal law system: some wrongful actors appear above the law and immune from criminal prosecution. As such, the criminal prosecutorial system affirms much of the wrongdoing giving rise to the crisis. This leaves the same elites undisturbed at the apex of the financial sector, and creates perverse incentives for any successors. Further, this undermines the legitimacy of the rule of law and encourages even more lawlessness among the entire population. These considerations transcend deterrence as well as retribution as a traditional basis for criminal punishment. Affirmance is far more costly and dangerous with respect to the crimes of powerful elites that control large organizations than can be accounted for under traditional nations of deterrence. Few limits are placed on a prosecutor’s discretionary decision about whom to prosecute, and many factors against prosecution are available, especially in resource-intensive white collar crime prosecutions. This article asserts that prosecutors should not exercise that discretion without considering its potential affirmance of crime.

[ipaper docId=57172143 access_key=key-1uhrrfzjkgrqacwy5znf height=600 width=600 /]

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