Justice and the E.F. Hutton Case

If in fact, “ ‘Justice Was Done’ in E.F. Hutton Fraud Case,” as Trott wrote, then the personification of justice has lost her blindfold and her scales are weighted in favor of massive corporate crime with that fictional legal entity being particularly immune from punishment and equal treatment under the law.

Trott would seem to be in favor of immediate benefit to victims of economic crime when the victims are institutions and the criminals are also institutions, but when individuals prey on other individuals the individual criminal is to be incarcerated without the individual victim necessarily receiving the benefit of immediate restitution of the economic loss suffered.

Particularly disturbing too is the message conveyed concerning confidence in the jury system when Trott states that presenting the E.F. Hutton case “to a jury would not have been without problems.”

The manner in which the E.F. Hutton case was resolved is an extreme example of all that is bad with plea bargaining, totally bypassing any judicious punishment for the criminals involved. At a minimum the executives of E.F. Hutton responsible for the functioning of the firm should have been obliged to resign and the firm being placed at least temporarily under strictly supervised management with periodic scrutiny.

The rap on the knuckles, which is what was given to E.F. Hutton in this case, where many of the victim banks “did not even realize that they have been victimized,” seems to say that if a better scheme had been designed that had never been discoverable it would have been acceptable.

It used to be said that one shouldn’t do the crime if one can’t pay the time (in prison), but it seems that the message given by the manner in which the E.F. Hutton case was resolved is that the bigger the crime the less is the time that needs to be paid.

SYLVAIN FRIBOURG

Woodland Hills