通用汽车会不会被指控谋杀？

    从2001年开始，通用汽车公司（General Motors）上百万辆汽车上的点火开关缺陷已导致至少13起致命车祸。针对通用汽车对这个缺陷长期不作为的情况，美国交通部（Department of Transportation）已经对它开出了3500万美元的罚单，而司法部（Department of Justice）可能会开出更大的罚单。由于这个缺陷导致人们死于非命，美国政府是否能以谋杀罪对通用汽车提出指控呢？答案是否定的。但可行的是——尽管不太可能——美国政府可以过失杀人罪起诉这家公司。而由于2009年采取的救助行动，政府直到去年还在这家公司持有一定股份。

    近几年来，所谓“人格化公司”（corporate personhood）这种说法经常见诸报端。2012年，米特•罗姆尼在爱荷华州展览会上向公民联合自治大会（Citizens United Ruling）抛出了那句臭名远扬的“朋友们，公司也是人啊”；而美国最高法院也在当时宣布，在为了选举而捐款时，公司实际上就是人。自此以后，这就成了大家热议的话题。

    纽约大学法学院（New York University Law School）专攻公司犯罪的詹妮弗•阿伦教授表示，这个道理也适用于车祸致死案。不过这种情况很罕见，处理起来也颇为困难。

    她说：“公司也可被控杀人，罪名通常是过失杀人，”不过这种情况很少见，因为“很少有造成那种结果的情形发生。”

    （司法部发言人拒绝就对通用汽车的调查发表评论。他表示，首席检察官埃里克•霍尔德已经拒绝证实正在开展此项调查。）

    阿伦称，对一家被控过失杀人的公司来说，必须满足几个条件罪名才能成立。首先，检察官必须能找到一个特定的人，正是他的某些行为导致被害人死亡。其次，此人必须是为了公司的利益、而且是在他被雇佣期间采取了这些行动，且在采取行动时，他“心智状态正常”。

    比如，阿伦称，如果一个邮政员工走进一家邮局并开枪打死了一名无辜旁观者，他并不是“为了公司的利益”而这么做。所以，即便是这一犯罪行为是在邮局发生，且行凶者就是邮局员工，但邮局也不会被控杀人罪，因为凶犯并不是在代表公司做这种事。

    不过阿伦认为，对通用汽车这个案例来说，如果发现有人在知道不召回就会致人死命的情况下还没有发起召回——阿伦一再强调她并不知道是不是真的存在这种情况——那通用汽车就很有可能因过失杀人罪遭到指控。

    Cozen O’Connor律所的产品责任律师吉姆•海勒称，指控通用汽车犯有过失杀人罪恐怕并不是个太有效的策略。

    他说：“这个案子可能在民事诉讼范围里处理比较好。”他表示，“司法部正面临很大压力，他们必须不仅行动果决，还要措施有力”。他预计尽管不太会提起刑事诉讼，但通用汽车仍然将面临巨额罚金。

    阿伦特别指出，一般来说，在处理刑事犯罪行为时，司法部并不会像对待一般自然人那样对待公司。

    她说：“尽管公司是所谓的法人，但这实际上只是一种法律上的虚拟规定。”1999年，时任副总检察长的霍尔德撰写了一个备忘录称，政府更倾向于让个人、而不是其所在公司对犯罪行为负责。政府认为，在让公司自行上报问题并与监管部门配合这个问题上，公司责任才是更有效的手段。如果自行上报会导致以过失杀人定罪，那公司恐怕就不太可能积极配合了。

    由前任美国检察官安东•瓦卢卡斯发布的报告称，没有发现通用汽车在这起事件中存在阴谋或有意隐瞒的情况。不过阿伦对任何公司开展自查的报告都抱怀疑态度。此外她还称，公司高管层可能采取的刻意隐瞒行为并不是可能发生过失杀人案的唯一相关因素。如果公司里某些层级较低的人知道点火开关存在缺陷，同时也有能力采取行动制止这批车下线，但却决定“为了公司的利益让这些车上路”，那也可以对公司提出过失杀人的指控。

    而瓦卢卡斯的报告还称，没有发现有通用汽车的员工为了利益而罔顾安全。

    不过值得指出的是，确实有一桩公司被控过失杀人的著名案例。2013年，英国石油公司（BP）就与2010年“深水地平线号”（Deepwater Horizon）钻井平台爆炸相关的11桩严重过失杀人指控认罪。这家公司同时被控犯有其他罪行，最后因刑事损害被罚了12.5亿美元。所以，就算通用汽车公司真的被判有罪，玛丽•巴拉和其他高管也不用担心坐牢。

    不管怎么说，通用汽车可能会因为点火开关缺陷导致13人死亡而吃官司。但是大家也不用期待什么天大的消息。（财富中文网）

    译者：清远

    A defective ignition switch in millions of General Motors’ GM -0.68% cars has led to at least 13 deaths since 2001. The Department of Transportation has fined the automaker $35 million for inaction regarding the switches, and the Department of Justice may impose an even bigger fine on the automaker. Given that people died as a result of the defect, could the U.S. government opt to charge GM with murder too?

    No. However, it is feasible — though unlikely — that the Detroit company could be charged with manslaughter by the very same government that, until just last year, owned a equity in it as a result of the 2009 government bailout.

    The idea of “corporate personhood” has been in the news repeatedly in the past few years. Between Mitt Romney’s infamous “Corporations are people, my friend” moment at the 2012 Iowa State Fair to the Citizens United ruling, where the U.S. Supreme Court declared that for the purpose of electoral donations, corporations are in fact people, it has been a hotly debated topic.

    That logic can be extended into homicide cases, said Jennifer Arlen, a professor at New York University Law School who specializes in corporate crimes. It is difficult and rare, though.

    “A corporation can be charged with homicide, usually manslaughter,” she said. It doesn’t happen very often, though, because “it’s very rare that the circumstances wrist that you can do that.”

    (A spokesman for the Department of Justice declined to comment about any investigations of GM, saying that Attorney General Eric Holder has already refused to confirm than an investigation is ongoing.)

    For a company to be charged with manslaughter, Arlen said, a few things have to happen. First, prosecutors would have to be able to find a specific person whose actions led to people dying. Second, that person would have to have taken those actions for the benefit of the company and within the scope of their employment, and have been “in the right mental state” when they took the actions.

    For instance, Arlen said, if a postal employee walks into a post office and shoots innocent bystanders, they are not acting “on behalf of the company.” So, even though it happened in a post office and was committed by a postal employee, the post office would not be guilty of homicide because the shooter was not acting on behalf of the company.

    In GM’s case, though, Arlen thinks it’s feasible that if a person was found who didn’t institute a recall knowing that by not doing so that person could cause people to die — something she stressed she does not know to be the case — GM would potentially be a candidate for manslaughter prosecution.

    Jim Heller, a product liability attorney with Cozen O’Connor, said that charging GM with manslaughter would not be a particularly effective strategy.

    “This is probably better handled in the civil lawsuits,” he said. Heller said that there is “a lot of pressure on the DOJ to act not only [swiftly] but forcefully.” He expects that though no criminal charges will be filed, the fines sill be significant.

    Generally, the Department of Justice has not taken the route of treating corporations as people when it comes to criminal conduct, Arlen noted.

    “Although firms are legally people, this is actually a legal fiction,” she said. In 1999 then-Deputy Attorney General Holder wrote a memo stating that it is the preference of the government to hold individuals responsible for crimes, not the companies they work for. Corporate liability is considered more useful as a means to get companies to self-report problems and work with regulators. If self-reporting could lead to manslaughter convictions, companies would be way less likely to take part.

    The report issued on Thursday by former U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas found that there was no conspiracy or attempt to cover up information. Arlen, though, was skeptical of any report commissioned by a company to investigate itself. Furthermore, she said that a potential cover-up by executives was not the only relevant thing to a potential manslaughter case. Manslaughter could also be charged if someone lower in the firm’s hierarchy knew about the ignition switches, and could have done something to stop them, but instead decided “to let the cars stay on the road for the benefit of the firm.”

    Valukas’ report also found that no GM employee prioritized profit over safety.

    Still, it’s worth noting that there is one notable case of a corporation being charged with manslaughter. In 2013, BP pled guilty to 11 counts of felony manslaughter in connection to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion. BP was charged with other crimes as well, and it paid $1.25 billion in criminal damages. So even if GM is convicted of homicide, Mary Barra and other senior executives don’t have to worry about doing time.

    So yes, GM could be charged in the 13 deaths tied to faulty ignition switches. But don’t hold your breath.