Letters to the Editor: If ‘corporations are people,’ does criminally charged Phillips 66 face jail time?

To the editor: “We’re sending a message.” “No one is above the law.” (“Phillips 66 faces federal charges over alleged wastewater dumping at Carson refinery,” Nov. 21)
Right. Reading these quotes about the felony criminal charges against Phillips 66, we all remember Mitt Romney lecturing to us unwashed ignoramuses that “corporations are people.”
Here’s my prediction: Phillips 66 will be convicted of some combination of misdemeanors and felonies. It’ll be commanded to pay fines equal to about two minutes of profit, and that’ll be the end of it.
The executives in the C-suite will remain there, because no individual will be convicted of anything, because the “corporation” kind of person made the decisions, not a “person” kind of person.
Now, I could be wrong. Phillips 66 may only be ordered to pay the paltry fine, with the proviso that it’s not accepting blame (simply writing a check to escape the hassle and expense of a trial — another business expense). You know, the kind of thing people-people get to do every day.
Predictably, it’ll just be another example of the truth: Corporations are definitely not people.
Barry Davis, Agoura Hills
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To the editor: So, with the closure of the 650-acre Phillips 66 refinery complex in Carson and Wilmington, we have a great opportunity to set aside some open green space populated by a California native ecosystem for residents sorely in need of it.
But no, in typical Los Angeles fashion, the answer is probably more warehouses and the massive truck traffic they generate, another chemically-laden golf course, unspecified “shops” and maybe some high-density housing thrown in to accompany the already tightly packed adjacent neighborhoods.
It’s the same old formula that includes zero consideration for the neighbors who won’t be able to play golf there, if that’s what is considered open space. But plenty of those neighbors will be up all night listening to trucks transporting profits from warehouses. Shame.
Michael J. Harley, Laguna Niguel