Between this and FTX, I am really starting to think the death penalty ought to be applicable for financial crimes beyond a certain magnitude. The intangible cost to society / peoples' lives is incalculable, but given the fundamental hypocrisy of the West anymore, the only thing that truly matters is money, especially rich people's money and thus grifters and con artists like SBF and Trump are allowed to skate by with a slap on the wrist. 11 years (no way is she serving that) is a slap on the wrist.
I basically agree. The point of punishment is to maintain Trust and standards in business dealings. This is very important.
That said, is a different argument and the idea that this specific Financial crime hurt lots of people throughout society. Nobody outside the investors was or will be harmed as long as trust and standards are maintained.
By comparison, I think the social harm would have been far greater if she defrauded $1 from every working american instead, instead 140M from 14 investors
Wouldn't the misallocation of funds be actually very big impact? Think of all the money spend on engineering, marketing, etc. were instead used on something productive?
They would have a big impact if they were used on something productive, but that is far from guaranteed. The money wasn't stolen from the community children's fund, which would naturally affect a lot of people. They were stolen from 14 investors, so the most likely alternative is that they would simply be used to further enrich those 14. Obviously, this is still wrong, but the number of people harmed in society is far fewer.
Death penalty would perhaps be suitable if customers died because of Theranos' faulty products. I'm not familiar with this case in detail but I know she scammed patients with her blood tests. Imagine your doctor scamming you with your health records?! That reminds me of a horror movie Jigsaw where main antagonist gets his cancer X-ray record mixed up with other patient's record. I agree 11 years is a light sentence. If I was judge I would give her 20 years.
Would society be any better off if she got 20 years vs 11 years (also accounting for the $300000 those 9 years would cost the government)? I guess read https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/elizabeth-holmes-sente... and see if it changes your mind. Her life is basically ruined with the only consolation being the fact that her husband is rich and I doubt any would be fraudster would repeat what she did if they knew they could get 11 years for it. I think there is a case to be made for penalizing some of the more calculated frauds, like there is a huge Medicare fraud problem and there'll be cases with loss amounts in the millions where people get 2-3 years which in my opinion is too low to have a deterrent effect. But giving her any more just seems cruel and would ultimately just hinder whatever restitution she is supposed to make.
