It seems strange that a group can literally organize the largest infiltration of the United States government, break several federal laws, have most of its leadership convicted, and then be allowed to not only grow, but expand and gain tax-exemption status.
Y'all are getting a nice, rare, treat, as I haven't done this in about a year. Here you go. /u/Raidicus, the extent of all top level responses, as of a few minutes ago when I took the screenshot. Names are edited out.
As you can see, there is one single word answer, one short paragraph which is wildly out of sync with the rules of the subreddit and was downvoted to -20 before we managed to remove it, and then everything else is people asking why things are deleted or making Scientology jokes about the deleted comments. This is what you are missing out on. If you want to be able to see those comments, then you have come to the wrong subreddit. We will continue to remove those comments, and also be issuing temporary bans to users who continue to make them as they compound the problem.
Edit: And to reiterate, while we wait for an answer, try killing the time with some of these past responses highlighted in our Monthly "Best Of". Also, in the best AskHistorians tradition, responses to this will be removed, unless they are incredibly insightful, in which case please make a META thread instead.
This question is a bit hard to answer, but I can give you some insight from a legal perspective.
Criminal prosecutions of organizations (for example, a business firm, or in this instance a "church") are guided by the U.S. Attorneys' manual, which is promulgated by the Office of the U.S. Attorney. The relevant materials can be found here.
Here are some guidelines from the manual:
Prosecutors should focus on wrongdoing by individuals from the very beginning of any investigation of corporate misconduct. By focusing on building cases against individual wrongdoers, we accomplish multiple goals. First, we increase our ability to identify the full extent of corporate misconduct. Because a corporation only acts through individuals, investigating the conduct of individuals is the most efficient and effective way to determine the facts and the extent of any corporate misconduct. Second, a focus on individuals increases the likelihood that those with knowledge of the corporate misconduct will be identified and provide information about the individuals involved, at any level of an organization. Third, we maximize the likelihood that the final resolution will include charges against culpable individuals and not just the corporation.
More specific information about prosecuting individuals can be found here.
Another relevant bit:
Prosecutors should be aware of the public benefits that can flow from indicting a corporation in appropriate cases. For instance, corporations are likely to take immediate remedial steps when one is indicted for criminal misconduct that is pervasive throughout a particular industry, and thus an indictment can provide a unique opportunity for deterrence on a broad scale. In addition, a corporate indictment may result in specific deterrence by changing the culture of the indicted corporation and the behavior of its employees.
There are practical difficulties to go along with these states goals. Specifically, many criminal charges require a level of intent, or mens rea, which really doesn't apply to an organization, because it's a legal fiction that must operate through individuals. While this doesn't necessarily prevent the criminal prosecution of an organization, it does make it more difficult if other members of the organization claim that the individual bad-actors were not acting on behalf of the organization, but were rather rogue agents. And this is, of course, what the Church of Scientology claimed:
My focus of study was criminology, so I can only comment and point you to the publicly available court documents.
First, a short summary of events as I understand them:
The Church of Scientology begin a programme in the mid 1960s with the goal of infiltrating the American government. Key to these events were Misters Gerald Wolfe and Michael Meisner who get jobs in the Internal Revenue Service as clerk-typists.
There then being a campaign to illegally collect, copy, and remove government sensitive documents with the intention of curtailing the IRS investigation into the Church's tax-exempt status.
By 1975 there had been a number of successful break-ins and theft of documents from government agencies and numerous solicitor/lawyer offices.
The most important illegal event was when Meisner forged IRS identification. Wolfe's was legitimate, as he worked for the IRS. In conjunction to that was the plan to have Nathan Dodell being removed from his position as an Assistant US Attorney for the District of Columbia. Assistant Attorney Dodell's office was broken into numerous times and documents therein were removed, copied, and replaced according to the past efforts of Misters Wolfe, Meisner, and other members of the Church.
Due to Misters Wolfe and Meisner continued unusual activities at the US Courthouse they were eventually questioned briefly by the FBI. Upon this they were ordered, by the Church, to L.A. to avoid decaton.
Wolfe was arrested for his forged documents. A warrant as then issued for Meisner and the connections to the Church became apparent.
As you noted, 11 persons were convicted. The centre of your question - why was the Church itself not convicted - can be answered simply thus:
a) the charges of conspiracy were brought against individuals
b) the Church was still under investigation by the IRS for tax reasons, but itself was not under investigation for the conspiracy itself
and
c) Church of Scientology International (CSI), an entity incorporated in November 1981, had not held tax exemption. The California courts found in late 1997 that Scientology's structure of supposedly independent corporations was a unfounded and ordered to pay the damages.
The IRS dropped its long-standing tax demand against CSC and the other Scientology entities, instead collecting money from CSI on behalf of all Scientology entities, despite the supposedly independent status of the latter.
Therefore, in this way the conspirators were convicted according to the proper court order and the Church was convicted according to the proper court order.
Edited: I wrote this comment a while ago and didn't post it until now.
To expand - while corporations are currently recognised as persons for political activities they were not at the time. I do not know enough about the American political-legal system to expand in-depth. Furthermore, the actions of the individual were complex enough to determine that each conspirator had enough agency to plan these illegal activities and do so with full knowledge and a foresight for improvisation i.e. when unable to break into an office via piking the locked door for a number of hours Misters Wolfe and Meisner banged on it until it opened.
Due to this a entirety cannot be changed as a whole. An example of this would be ENRON - the individuals were charged with various conspiracies and illegal activities but not the company itself.
Sources:
FEDERAL AGENTS RAID SCIENTOLOGY CHURCH By ANTHONY MARRO Special to The New York Times New York Times (1857-Current file); Jul 9, 1977; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2006) PDF
US v Mary Sue Hubbard, et al., 78 U.S. 401, Stipulation of Evidence (D.D.C. October 1979).
United States v. Zolin, 491 US 554 - Supreme Court 1989
IN RE SEARCH WARRANT DATED JULY 4, 1977, ETC., 572 F. 2d 321 - Court of App...
Churchof Scientology of Cal. v. United States, 506 US 9 - Supreme Court 1992
It seems strange that a group can literally organize the largest infiltration of the United States government, break several federal laws, have most of its leadership convicted, and then be allowed to not only grow, but expand and gain tax-exemption status.
Well, do we know what documents the the Church obtained? They're not above blackmail, obviously.
Follow-up: What were the prior and subsequent precautions taken against such infiltration?
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