United States v. Park

421 U.S. 658 (1975)

Purchase the Printed Copy at bsmsphd.com

Nature of the Case

To access this section all you need to do is click here and register.

Facts

Park (D) was the president of Acme Markets, Inc. Acme is a national chain with 874 outlets 12 general warehouses and 4 special warehouses. Acme had 36,000 employees. The government charged Acme with violation of Food and Drug regulations in that Acme held food ready for sale in a warehouse in Baltimore, and that food was exposed to rodents and was contaminated by rodents. Acme plead guilty and D, plead not guilty. D had been informed by letter of the conditions within the warehouse, and under the corporate charter, it was determined that D was responsible for normal operating duties. D was his only witness at the trial and testified that there was an organizational structure in place within the corporation and that he had done all he could do within that corporate structure to rectify the problems by informing those responsible to fix them and report back to him. On the stand, D admitted that the system in place for the sanitation of the facilities was not working properly and that as the president, he was responsible for any result which occurs in the company. The jury found D guilty on all counts of the information, and he was subsequently sentenced to pay a fine of $50 on each count. D appealed based on a jury instruction that basically made him strictly liable for all acts of the corporation. The Court of Appeals reversed. That court viewed the Government as arguing 'that the conviction may be predicated solely upon a showing that . . . [respondent] was the President of the offending corporation,' and it stated that as 'a general proposition, some act of commission or omission is an essential element of every crime.' It reasoned that, although our decision in United States v. Dotterweich, supra, at 281, had construed the statutory provisions under which respondent was tried to dispense with the traditional element of '`awareness of some wrongdoing,'' the Court had not construed them as dispensing with the element of 'wrongful action.' The Court of Appeals concluded that the trial judge's instructions 'might well have left the jury with the erroneous impression that D could be found guilty in the absence of `wrongful action' on his part,' and that proof of this element was required by due process. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.