I think that's a much bigger crime than anything financiers have supposedly committed.
Also what crime were you accusing me of having committed? Unlawful proposing of legislation Morgante doesn't like?
(GP wasn't claiming that you were literally committing a crime, rather suggesting that making it easier to convict innocent people would be a "crime" in a rhetorical sense)
Maybe it's working perfectly to protect financiers from being prosecuted for immoral but legal acts.
If I'm a superqualified, incredibly careful, good-guy explosives chemist, I still don't get to whip up a batch of Octol in my garage. The law deems explosives manufacture an inherently dangerous activity subject to strict liability. No mens rea needed, intent is irrelevant, conduct is all.
Strict liability principles have worked fairly well. Maybe they're worth trying in the financial sphere. I wonder how we would define an inherently dangerous financial activity?
There is a pretty straightforward solution. I'll leave to the reader whether or not it is a good one.
Redefine the crimes so they are easier to prove. In many cases that is going to involve moving from a mens rea (guilty mental state) of intentionally to recklessly, negligently or even eliminating mens rea altogether and just requiring an actus reus (guilty act). In some cases that might mean criminalizing more acts of omission instead of requiring proof of an overt bad act.
I want to be clear that this wouldn't be costless. It goes against much our existing framework for what makes people criminals. It would increase the chance that someone who made honest mistakes would be criminally punished. But remember Blackstone said that it is better for ten guilty men to go free than one man suffer, not one hundred, not one thousand and certainly not all the guilty men. And he was writing in an era when all felonies were capital crimes.
A small percentage of murderers getting off on technicalities is something a society can live with, even be proud of in a strange way, but when the exception swallows the rule that society is playing with fire.