February 12, 2004

Martha Stewart: Key Argument Hidden from Jury Because It Might “Confuse” Them!

I’m not making this up.

Morvillo petitioned the judge Wednesday to let him argue that Stewart’s sale was not an act of insider trading.

He wants to show Stewart never believed she made an insider sale and therefore had no motive to lie. But the judge, worried that jurors will become confused about the actual charges against Stewart, was cool to the request.

The charge itself is unreasonable and preposterous, and the defense can’t explain that to a jury? The justice system in this country is, in some cases, getting out of control. There is a far greater danger to our freedom from this than there is from things such as the Patriot Act.

Martha Stewart Trial: Prosecutors decided that a thing that has been considered normal behavior for years, is now illegal.

I continue to feel outraged about this trial. This is a case in which prosecutors have invented a brand-new crime, with which no one has ever before been charged: the crime of knowing that a company insider was selling stock and therefore selling it yourself, which they declare makes you an insider too.

...before suing Stewart the SEC had never gone after the customer of a broker who offered his knowledge of what another customer had done as a reason to make a trade.

Of course, since no one’s ever been charged with this before, their victim, a.k.a. the defendent, had no way of knowing it could be considered a crime.

As Martha Stewart’s trial moves into a third week, an important question remains unasked: Why are the feds prosecuting someone [i.e. a member of the public – ed.] for receiving inside information, anyway? Isn’t the criminal the corporate official who acts on knowledge that the public doesn’t have?

...The law, however, is murky, and it’s doubtful that an investor who picks up information about a CEO’s stock sale (even a CEO the investor knows) has violated the law.

“Doubtful!” It’s “doubtful” that the thing could even be considered a crime. How are we supposed to defend ourselves from a justice system that decides that things that have been done for years, are now illegal? How would you like to have your business destroyed by a whim of the goverment’s like this one?

This is a travesty.