Why Martha?
March 7, 2004
In the wake of the jury finding Martha Stewart guilty on all charges, I began to wonder why the government was so diligent in prosecuting Stewart for a $45,000 violation of securities law, while moving much more slowly on prosecuting corporate executives like Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski, Enron's Jeffrey Skilling or WorldCom's Bernard Ebbers,
A New York Times news analysis asks experts about this same question: Stewart's Celebrity Created Magnet for Scrutiny
She's a wonderful target to show that the administration is serious about fraud," said [DePaul University College of Law Professor Mary] Becker, referring to the wave of white-collar indictments obtained by prosecutors around the country. "Lots of publicity doesn't disturb any of the old boys or anybody who made a significant amount of money."
TalkLeft's TChris asks Why Was Martha Stewart Prosecuted?
The solution to inequality is not to make examples of celebrities by treating them more harshly. The solution is to improve the way the criminal justice system treats everyone else.
Blog 702 (the only blog to date focusing on a single Federal Rule of Evidence) notes one potential strategy for Stewart's appeal: Expert Testimony, the Fifth Amendment, and Martha Stewart's Appeal
Posted by Andrew Raff at March 7, 2004 8:53 PMOne of the reasons Martha was prosecuted, in my opinion, was that she used to be a stock broker herself. The SEC would lose a lot of credibility if it didn't go after what looked like an open-and-shut case, especially when Martha acted as if she had no idea what she could have possibly done wrong. Martha Stewart has a Series 7 license. She knows exactly what she did wrong.
Posted by: Jason at March 7, 2004 10:39 PM