C'Ville Correspondent Contests Celebrity's Controversial Criminal Conviction Concerning Christmas Chucking
Our Charlottesville Correspondent writes:
This is entirely stoopid. Since I am a lawyer, I feel it necessary to
comment on this lunacy (and since you brought it up last week, I will
comment to you).
Martha Stewart was convicted of lying during the course of an investigation
that revealed that she had committed no crime. Mr. Turow, on the other
hand, says rather blithely that the inconvenient fact that she committed no
crime should matter not at all, because it's hard for prosecutors to prove
insider trading, and courts are a bitch. Well, the whole entire point of
the criminal justice system is that we are not going to take away a
person's liberty unless the government proves, beyond a reasonable doubt,
that the defendant has committed a crime. Here is an excerpt from Mr.
Turow's entire stoopid piece:
The jury convicted her not because of anything Larry Stewart said, but for
the reason juries are supposed to: there was solid proof that Martha
Stewart deliberately violated common standards of honesty and decency, and
lied about it when she was caught. And it is only the privilege the law
sometimes extends to the well-to-do that explains why she was not convicted
of more.
Let's break it down: first, it is not a crime to deliberately violate
common standards of honesty and decency, and Martha Stewart was not charged
with the only crime that could be considered to fit within that definition.
Second, juries are not supposed to convict a person because she violated
"common standards of honesty and decency." This is why we have things like
statutes that ban, for example, armed robbery. Armed robbery violates
common standards of honesty and decency. So is me telling my mother that I
watered her plants when she was out of town, when I didn't. Armed robbery
is a crime, but lying about not watering plants is not. If I were to lie
to a federal officer about watering the plants, I would be doing something
"wrong, really wrong."
Finally, Mr. Turow forgets that Martha got charged with more than that for
which she was found guilty. It's not like the government just said "oh,
well, she's a rich broad, so let's let a few of these slide." I cannot
understand his last sentence, given those facts.
I say all this, because perjury of the forensics expert probably should
result in overturning of her case. Perjury of a material witness, meaning
one whose testimony is instrumental in obtaining the conviction, is "new
found evidence" that can lead to retrial of the original case. There is
every reason to think that the jury, although passing on other evidence and
making special verdicts on the nature of the false statements, considered
the "ink" evidence material to the entire "criminal enterprise." She
should, in my view, get a new trial.
I think she should get a new trial for the conduct of her lawyers.
Remember, she was represented by counsel at the meetings with the federal
investigators. She had no obligation at all to speak with them. Her
lawyers should have done everything in their power to keep her from talking
to the feds. None of this would have come up had she kept the yapper shut.
WT
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/opinion/27TURO.html?pagewanted=2&hp
