State v. CECOS International, Inc.

The modern corporation is nearly omnipresent in American society. Yet, legal sanctions on corporate criminal activity are difficult to enforce because a corporation is but an intangible, ethereal being created by the state. Its actions affect employees, assets, the economy, and finally, society; yet, it remains, in Lord Thurlow’s words, a being that “has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked.”1 Deterring and punishing corporate criminal conduct thus has become a difficult and sometimes elusive quest.

One of the most controversial aspects of enterprise criminal liability concerns the…