Don't worry, Toyota execs, you are safe in Japan
Yahoo News:
http://news.yahoo.com/toyota-case-shows-hard-prosecute-071725458.html
"While the case against the company may be overwhelming, lodging personal responsibility for misstatements "is more difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt," said Stephen Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University.
Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, whose office brought the case, told reporters last week that while he had not foreclosed the possibility of criminal charges against individuals, he expected the settlement to be the end of the matter.
When people who break the law live outside the country, "there are problems of evidence and problems of proof," Bharara said when asked about the prospect of prosecuting individuals at the company. Evidence and documents that can be brought into play against a corporation, he said, might not be admissible against specific people.
A chiling redux of the tobacco company tactic of keeping incriminating research material offshore and out of the hands of U.S. law enforcement.
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In our present case of Toyota, I am guessing, but perhaps I can discern a knowledge pattern among executives.
GROUP 1
Some Americans were kept deliberately in the dark about defects, even though they did receive customer complaints. James Lentz is the key case in point. He could sincerely say nothng is wrong with the electronics because no one told him anything about them. He testified in court "I am not very technical." Surely you are not, Jim, when you are not told anything...
GROUP 2
Then there are the senior Japanese execs who are above the fray of defects. Their main job is to make money and insist to their subordinates that they must make money.
GROUP 3
Then there are the front-line Japanese execs who hear about the defects from their people. These are the guys who have to be kept far from U.S. law enforcement. I think they do not visit the U.S.
If Preet and colleagues cannot gather enough evidence in the U.S. to charge the executives of GROUP 3, they cannot be extradicted. If they are not charged, they cannot be compelled to come to the U.S. to explain the documents.
Generally, extradition treaties require that the person at issue be a fugitive. The wording of a treaty controls who can be extradited, but a fugitive is broadly defined as a person who is absent from a country when that country seeks to prosecute him for a crime. It is not necessary for the person to have intentionally fled in order to avoid charges, or that the person knew he had charges against him. Thus, intent on the part of the fugitive is generally not a factor in determining if extradition is legal. In addition, a person generally remains a fugitive until the demanding nation has dropped the charges against him.
Offenses for which a person may be extradited are determined by the wording of the treaty involved. If there are questions about the wording of the treaty, the asylum country generally determines whether a particular crime is covered. The offense must generally constitute a crime in both nations. The laws do not have to be carbon copies of each other, but the laws must be substantially analogous. The fact that the requesting nation lacks legal defenses or has a different burden of proof generally does not defeat extradition.
Japan has an extradition treaty with the U.S.