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Monday, February 01, 2010
Environment - "For scofflaws, a public mea culpa: Plea-deal ads admit environmental crimes"
Some quotes from Jonathan Saltzman's story in today's Boston Globe:
The Rockmore Co. has a confession: “Our company has discharged human waste directly into Massachusetts coastal waters.’’That statement is part of an abject apology that will soon appear in newspaper ads if a federal judge approves a plea deal between the US government and Rockmore, which is accused of illegally dumping waste for years in Salem Harbor and in the Charles River off the Esplanade from its sightseeing cruise ship and its floating restaurant.
The agreement would mark at least the fourth time in recent years that federal prosecutors in Massachusetts have required environmental scofflaws to buy large and costly advertisements atoning for their crimes as part of their sentences.
Many legal scholars say the apologies foster contrition and save the government the high costs of more traditional punishments, such as incarceration.
But some defense lawyers and scholars say the ads represent a throwback to the stocks and pillories of Colonial times and are designed less to educate the public and more to humiliate wrongdoers. * * *
If the plea deal is accepted by US District Judge Joseph L. Tauro on Feb. 8 in Boston, the company would have to pay fines of more than $300,000, spend three years on probation, and run a half-page apology in the Boston Herald and full-page apologies in three newspapers that serve coastal communities.
“We, the Rockmore Company, sincerely apologize for contaminating the coastal waterways of Massachusetts,’’ the ad is supposed to say. “For these actions, we have paid a steep fine and have pleaded guilty to criminal charges. We are sorry.’’
The company’s name is to appear at the bottom of the ad in typeface twice the size of the text’s typeface
Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 1, 2010 05:42 PM
Posted to Environment