Should peanut owners be criminally prosecuted for assault?

As revealed in a Congressional hearing today, Peanut Corporation of America President Stewart Parnell said, in internal e-mails, he was more worried about bottom line costs than about salmonella, or other problems the company knew it had at its main plant, including cockroaches and a leaky roof.

So worried, in fact, that untested products were sent out the door to the public. So worried that PCA stopped using a testing lab that found too much contamination.

So, with salmonella a known cause of sickness, and potentially contaminated products shipped from a factory whose owners knew it had a leaky roof and cockroaches, isn’t this criminal assault?

Parnell didn’t answer that, or anything else, in person today, instead repeatedly taking the Fifth before Congress. Neither did other PCA honchos. All were no-shows to the non-subpoena hearing.

As far as potential criminality, much of the product from PCA plants went to nursing homes or schools.

You know, here in Texas, if you specifically assault a child or an elderly person, it ups the criminal charges and punishment potential.

Given that we now know PCA made at least one kid sick:

“The issue was no longer what had we done unknowingly, but what had PCA done knowingly,” father Terence Hurley said.

Or, from the MSN story about taking the Fifth, at least one senior citizen was killed:

“I would like to ask why anyone would not want to have mandatory recall. Why do we leave it up to the company?” asked Jeffrey Almer, whose mother, Shirley Mae Almer, died Dec. 21, several months after the outbreak was first known about. The 72-year-old was in a Brainerd, Minn., nursing home recovering from cancer treatment when her daughter served her peanut butter toast.

“Their behavior is criminal, in my opinion. I want to see jail time,” he said.

Thus, the rhetorical question is a no-brainer in my mind.

I say, let’s put PCA President Stewart Parnell and a few of his minions on trial.

And, if convicted?

Well, the “eye for an eye” of the Torah actually isn’t always such a bad idea.

Lock them up in a jail cell with nothing but their own peanut products for jailhouse food.

Beyond that, how did we get to a point like this, anyway? For years, the FDA has been outsourcing more and more of its food inspection work to underpaid, undertrained inspectors at underfunded state agencies.