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Al Capone's Revenge: An Essay On The Political Economy Of Pretextual Prosecution, Daniel C. Richman, William J. Stuntz
Al Capone's Revenge: An Essay On The Political Economy Of Pretextual Prosecution, Daniel C. Richman, William J. Stuntz
Faculty Scholarship
Most analyses of pretextual prosecutions – cases in which prosecutors target defendants based on suspicion of one crime but prosecute them for another, lesser crime – focus on the defendant's interest in fair treatment. Far too little attention is given to the strong social interest in non-pretextual prosecutions. Charging criminals with their "true" crimes makes criminal law enforcement more transparent, and hence more politically accountable. It probably also facilitates deterrence. Meanwhile, prosecutorial strategies of the sort used to "get" Al Capone can create serious credibility problems. The Justice Department has struggled with those problems as it has used Capone-style strategies …
Serial Entrepreneurs And Small Business Bankruptcies, Douglas G. Baird, Edward R. Morrison
Serial Entrepreneurs And Small Business Bankruptcies, Douglas G. Baird, Edward R. Morrison
Faculty Scholarship
Chapter 11 is thought to preserve the going-concern surplus of a financially distressed business – the extra value that its assets possess in their current configuration. Financial distress leads to conflicts among creditors that can lead to inefficient liquidation of a business with going-concern surplus. Chapter 11 avoids this by providing the business with a way of fashioning a new capital structure. This account of Chapter 11 fails to capture what is happening in the typical case. The typical Chapter 11 debtor is a small corporation whose assets are not specialized and rarely worth enough to pay tax claims. There …