Let me apologize, in advance, for a rant wholly bereft of hyperlinks.
It's widely accepted the Supreme Court will soon strike down the existing ban on certain forms of corporate-financed political advertising, agreeing with a challenge of these laws on "free speech" grounds, corporations becoming as-if persons in terms of speech.
What isn't accepted, at least in our corporate-owned media, is corporations can pick-and-choose when they are to be treated as-if persons and when not.
Many of you are familiar with a recent case involving illegal downloads of songs via a file-sharing network, in which the RIAA, the musical industry's trade association, was awarded millions of dollars from a single end-use downloader, one notably not alleged to have redistributed the downloads. The EFF, the association dedicated to openness on the Internet, suggested this massive award would not stand up when the case makes its way to the Supreme Court. After all, the Supreme Court recently struck down a large punitive damage award against BMW in Alabama on the grounds it was excessive in terms of the actual damages in the case. By any arithmetic involved, the file sharing case was many multiples more excessive than BMW.
But, a further review of these cases suggests the current Supreme Court, with a Republican majority, may be able to let the file-sharing award stand despite its own precedent. The reason for this is simple: the damages in the file-sharing case were a "criminal" penalty, established by statute, while the damages in the BMW case were a civil award established by a jury.
This distinction underlies the biggest flaw in our legal system. Namely, when an individual damages a corporation, we have taxpayers finance a criminal justice system that prosecutes these damage claims. When a corporation damages an individual, except in rare cases we require the damaged individual to self-finance an arduous civil claim against the corporation.
Here's a clear case-in-point:
When Disney failed to pay royalties on 'Winnie the Pooh', there were no criminal charges considered against Disney. Instead, the true owners of the rights had to self-finance a lawsuit against a deep-pocketed defendant.
But, if you or I fail to pay royalities" on a Disney MP3, Disney can simply call the local prosecutor and have us arrested.
Another example is Microsoft, which can place a call and have you arrested for using unauthorized software but which is itself not criminally liable for wrongly disabling software you own.
And, of course, BMW.
In that case, BMW painted over damage and sold cars as undamaged. No ifs, ands or buts- an orchestrated conspiracy. The people who bought the cars had to hire a lawyer and sue BMW in civil court. Does anyone doubt if the situation were reversed, an individual going to great lengths to hide damage to a trade-in, the local sheriff would have arrested him?
If John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia want to consider corporations as persons, then the Democrats in Congress should make all of the officers of a corporation simultaneously criminally liable for frauds perpetrated by corporations. Of course, Roberts, Alito and Scalia would then turn on a dime, but at least the American people would see the issue laid bare before them.
Addendum:
As mentioned in the Comments, the very idea of a corporation is to limit the legal liability of the individuals who own the company. It's rather brazen for the Republican Justices to claim "the Company is almost indistinguishable from its owners" when, in fact, the company's owners act to separate themselves from the Company when they are accused of damaging and defrauding consumers.