宪政视野下的美国法人犯罪审前协议制度——以Stein案为中心

The Pretrial Agreement System of American Corporate Crime in the Perspective of Constitutionalism:Reviewing the Stein Case

审前协议,最初是对少年轻微犯罪的一种转处措施。后安然时代,审前协议成为美国司法部处理上市公司严重犯罪的一种基本模式。审前协议规定的支付罚金等义务,是一种不折不扣的"惩罚"。这种惩罚既不需要以定罪为前提,也不需要贴上"刑罚"的标签,因而是一种"无需定罪的惩罚"。在Stein案中,联邦法院首次对审前协议内容的合宪性进行了司法审查,认为检察署施压毕马威致其停止支付雇员律师费的行为违反了美国宪法第六修正案。此外,由于审前协议在制度设计上存在根本缺陷,因而还存在违反平等适用法律原则的问题。

Pretrial agreement initially was conceived as a measure for the juveniles who had slight crime.In the post-Enron era,it became a basic way for American justice ministry to handle serious criminal cases made by listed companies.The legal obligation such as paying fines in pretrial agreement is a kind of out-and-out 'punishment',which is implemented without conviction or the label of 'criminal punishment',so that it is a kind of 'punishment without conviction'.In the Stein case,the federal court reviewed the constitutionality of pretrial agreement for the first time,and considered that the activity that the procuratorate pressed on the defendant causing KPMG ended the payment of lawyer fee violated the Sixth Amendment to the constitution of the United States.Besides,pretrial agreement had fundamental flaws in the design,so that it also violated the equal and applicable law principles.