On the Mental State of Consciousness of Wrongdoing

Mistake about or ignorance of the law does not exculpate in criminal law, except in limited circumstances. Doctrine and theory cognate to this principle are, by now, well developed and understood. But might an actor\u27s awareness of the illegality or wrongfulness of her conduct inculpate — that is, constitute a form of mens rea that establishes or aggravates liability? Trends in recent adjudication in white collar crime suggest that the answer is yes. This article, part of a symposium issue on Adjudicating the Guilty Mind, takes the first pass at describing the mental state of “consciousness of wrongdoing,” assessing its fit with the conceptual architecture of substantive criminal law, and uncovering the many challenges of proof and adjudication that this concept poses. Three conclusions broadly emerge from this initial, and somewhat truncated, inquiry: first, inculpating an actor for adverting to the legal or normative significance of her conduct is an attractive means of dealing with difficult line-drawing problems presented by many white collar offenses; second, the method can be justified on both retributive and deterrent grounds; and third, the practice requires much more thought and precision at the operational level, lest problems inherent in the structure of criminal adjudication be exacerbated in cases in which liability depends on the idea that an actor “knew what she was doing was wrong

On the Mental State of Consciousness of Wrongdoing

Mistake about or ignorance of the law does not exculpate in criminal law, except in limited circumstances. Doctrine and theory cognate to this principle are, by now, well developed and understood. But might an actor\u27s awareness of the illegality or wrongfulness of her conduct inculpate — that is, constitute a form of mens rea that establishes or aggravates liability? Trends in recent adjudication in white collar crime suggest that the answer is yes. This article, part of a symposium issue on Adjudicating the Guilty Mind, takes the first pass at describing the mental state of “consciousness of wrongdoing,” assessing its fit with the conceptual architecture of substantive criminal law, and uncovering the many challenges of proof and adjudication that this concept poses. Three conclusions broadly emerge from this initial, and somewhat truncated, inquiry: first, inculpating an actor for adverting to the legal or normative significance of her conduct is an attractive means of dealing with difficult line-drawing problems presented by many white collar offenses; second, the method can be justified on both retributive and deterrent grounds; and third, the practice requires much more thought and precision at the operational level, lest problems inherent in the structure of criminal adjudication be exacerbated in cases in which liability depends on the idea that an actor “knew what she was doing was wrong

An Indictment of Bright Line Tests for Honest Services Mail Fraud

Sparse matrix-matrix multiplication (SpGEMM) is a computational primitive that is widely used in areas ranging from traditional numerical applications to recent big data analysis and machine learning. Although many SpGEMM algorithms have been proposed, hardware specific optimizations for multi- and many-core processors are lacking and a detailed analysis of their performance under various use cases and matrices is not available. We firstly identify and mitigate multiple bottlenecks with memory management and thread scheduling on Intel Xeon Phi (Knights Landing or KNL). Specifically targeting multi- and many-core processors, we develop a hash-table-based algorithm and optimize a heap-based shared-memory SpGEMM algorithm. We examine their performance together with other publicly available codes. Different from the literature, our evaluation also includes use cases that are representative of real graph algorithms, such as multi-source breadth-first search or triangle counting. Our hash-table and heap-based algorithms are showing significant speedups from libraries in the majority of the cases while different algorithms dominate the other scenarios with different matrix size, sparsity, compression factor and operation type. We wrap up in-depth evaluation results and make a recipe to give the best SpGEMM algorithm for target scenario. A critical finding is that hash-table-based SpGEMM gets a significant performance boost if the nonzeros are not required to be sorted within each row of the output matrix

International White Collar Crime and the Globalization of Internal Investigations

Much has been written about the methods by which counsel may efficiently, thoroughly, and credibly conduct internal investigations. Given the globalization of such matters, however, this article seeks to focus on the challenges present when conducting an internal investigation of potential international white-collar criminal activity. In Part I, this article will examine the challenges of selecting counsel to perform internal investigations abroad. In particular, consideration will be given to global standards regarding the application of the attorney-client privilege and work product protections. In Part II, this article will discuss the influence of data privacy and protection laws in various countries and analyze the challenges of attempting to conduct an American-style internal investigation in such jurisdictions. Part III of this article will examine interactions with employees during international internal investigations and will consider the challenges of complying with varying labor laws and due process requirements around the world. Finally, in Part IV, this article will discuss the hazards of multi-jurisdictional investigations by government agencies. In particular, consideration will be given to decisions regarding the disclosure of investigatory findings and the difficulties of engaging in settlement negotiations in an international enforcement environment

Profiling Illegal Waste Activity: Using Crime Scripts as a Data Collection and Analytical Strategy

The illegal treatment and trade of waste is an international problem which is widely assumed to be both evolving and growing. Emergent forms of criminality such as this often have the problem of data being in scarce supply, and as a result are difficult to study, and subsequently understand. In this paper we introduce the methodological concept of script analysis to assist a more objective assessment and understanding of illegal waste activity. This includes using crime scripts in two ways; to help identify data requirements, and as a tool to analyse illegal waste processes. We illustrate the utility of this methodology using waste electrical and electronic equipment. In doing so, we argue that this approach elicits a specific, focused account of what illegal activity has occurred, and nests it within the wider context of the waste management system. We anticipate that using this methodology will provide academics and practitioners a means of enhancing the investigation, detection and prevention of illegal waste activity

Criminal Consumer Fraud: A Victim-Oriented Analysis

The poor and the elderly are the principal victims of the high pressure and often sophisticated sale techniques of criminal consumer fraud in this country. The problem is compounded when the poor and the elderly live in inner cities where legal assistance is costly and inadequate, and the courts, prosecutors, and investigators are overburdened. Yet the executive and legislative agencies responsible for law enforcement continue to assign a low priority to criminal consumer fraud. President Ford has reflected this orientation: For effective management [of law enforcement], we first have to have some hard decisions on priorities. As a starter, I would suggest a high priority on violent crime and street crime in the inner-city. There is where crime does the most damage to our whole urban structure. There is where crime hurts the poor who already suffer enough. The cruel irony of this statement is that one of the most significant causes of this suffering is criminal consumer fraud. The statement implicitly presumes that the economic impact of criminal fraud on low-income consumers is negligible because they are not consumers of expensive durable goods. But this presumption overlooks that rapidly expanding American institution, the installment plan and the special forms it takes in low-income areas. The harm resulting from the low-income family\u27s lack of shopping sophistication and its vulnerability to easy credit\u27\u27 does not end merely with higher prices and heavy indebtedness. Repossession, creditor harassment, and garnishment of wages take their greatest tolls on the poor. Herbert Edelhertz notes: A surprisingly large number of people living in ghettos do have something to lose, but unlike the established middle classes the asset in jeopardy is very often the only asset which stands between its owner and utter destitution

Corporate Ethical Training: An Answer to White-Collar Crimes

The modern business corporation is a culturally significant component of American Society. It is facing a cultural invasion of the highest order. The categorical imperative, an unconditional principle that rational individuals must follow despite natural desires or inclinations to do otherwise, is today being called into question. This is most likely the result of grounding moral values upon information that is transient and unstable rather than upon established data. The social contract, which governs the formation and maintenance of individual morals, is a requirement in organizations that demands collective agency – employees acting together to set forth moral rules of behavior and eschew pernicious leanings and tendencies. From that perspective, ethical training becomes a key leveraging point in the disconnect between cultural expectations and individual behaviors in corporate America