Scrushy of HealthSouth was acquitted of all charges, in a stunning defeat in the extraordinarily misguided campaign to criminalize business. Tom Kirkendall has this early report.
As I said here, the HealthSouth trial illustrated the problems of "trying to get juries to sort out ordinary agency costs from extraordinary crime." The government should have been helped considerably by Sarbox in this case. But even with this help, the prosecution failed.
As I have pointed out repeatedly, these cases have been an extraordinary waste of tax dollars, given that other mechanisms are available for disciplining corporate agents. Even when "successful," the prosecutions have tested the limits of justice and the rule of law by producing an almost random pattern of convictions and penalties.
Scrushy had a vast campaign prior to the trial.
http://positiveposition.blogspot.com/2005/05/elephant-in-room.html
Posted by: ike | June 28, 2005 at 04:52 PM