This weekend saw something unusual in the nation's elite newspapers. Three detailed stories about white collar crime issues.

WSJ Weekend carried this in-depth and outstanding piece by Gary Fields and John R. Emshwiller about overcriminalization–the proliferation of criminal statutes, particularly at the federal level, covering more and more aspects of everyday life. The article also focused on Congress's increasing enactment of statutes that dispense with any meaningful mens rea element. Although both of these problems have been around for years, and the article makes no effort to treat the matter historically, it does a generally good job of framing the issues.

Fields and Emshwiller detail how the Idaho U.S. Attorney's Office successfully prosecuted a father and son for attempting "to take artifacts off federal land without a permit" under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979. They were out camping and looking for arrowheads, which they failed to find, and apparently did not know that the law existed. According to Fields and Emshwiller, the Act "doesn't require criminal intent." This is true of the Act on its face, but the father and son clearly intended to search for arrowheads and did not have a permit. This case is really more an example of obscure administrative criminal statutes that no normal person can be expected to master. Hence it is terribly unfair in such circumstances to apply the old saw that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." But don't tell that to Idaho U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson. She will just answer that "[f]olks do need to pay attention to where they are."

The article also details how Olson's office convicted an inventor for abandoning covered chemicals under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. This was after the inventor had been acquitted in an Alaskan federal court for illegally shipping the same chemicals without proper labeling. Would this have been the proper occasion for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion? Not a chance. According to Ms. Olson, her "office will continue to aggressively prosecute" such crimes.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the Washington Post's David Hilzenrath wrote a story with the headline, Quandary for U.S. companies: Whom to Bribe? The piece purported to give both sides of the FCPA debate, but I found it slanted towards the DOJ view. While discussing the recent convictions in the Lindsey Manufacturing case, Hilzenrath never mentions that the Lindsey guilty verdicts are in serious doubt post-trial, with further briefing due from the parties and a federal district judge who has questioned the case and is angry at the government. Even more amazingly, Hilzenrath nowhere references the recently concluded 10-week jury trial in D.C. against the first wave of defendants in DOJ's heavily publicized African Sting FCPA bribery case. The trial resulted in a hung jury mistrial. According to one of the defense attorneys, Todd Foster, the main theme of the defense was that the FCPA was too complicated to be understood by the defendants. Yet this trial, occurring right under the Post's nose, was not deemed worthy of mention. Hat tip to Todd for bringing the article to my attention.

Finally, the Sunday New York Times focuses on Murdoch's Unlikely Ally, former New York City schools chancellor and DOJ Antitrust Chief Joel Klein, in an article by Jeremy Peters, Michael Barbaro, and Javier Hernandez. It is a very good story and remarkable for its focus on the mechanics of News Corporation's internal investigation. Instead of following the "best practice" and hiring an outside law firm to conduct the investigation and report to an audit or special committee controlled by independent outsiders, News Corporation is employing something of a hybrid. It has appointed Lord Anthony Grabiner as the internal investigation's "Independent Chairman." But Grabiner sat behind, and presumably advised, the Murdochs during last week's parliamentary testimony. Grabiner will report to Klein, a News Corporation executive and trusted Murdoch adviser who also sat behind the Murdochs. Klein will report to Viet Dinh, "an independent director on the News Corporation board," for whom I have enormous respect. The article quotes University of Delaware corporate governance expert Charles Elson to the effect that this arrangement "is not standard practice." It may be more standard than Professor Elson realizes. It is obviously not the best practice for ensuring a truly independent investigation. Virtually by definition, there is no way that such an investigation can be wholly and truly independent.

By the way, even an investigation conducted by outside counsel and reporting to the audit committee (or a specially created independent committee) may only be independent up to a point. Let's say that the investigation is completed and outside counsel submits a report to the audit or independent committee. What happens next? Is the Board of Directors required to follow the recommendations of the independent committee? If not, then what is the point of the process in the first place? But that is a topic for another day.

(Wisenberg)