The new issue of Newsweek has several articles on Martha Stewart's conviction. One discloses that Martha turned down two deals , including one in April, 2003 which would have allowed for, but not guaranteed, a non-jail sentence.

Had she admitted wrongdoing in early 2002, she could have gotten off with a $200,000 fine and no jail time. And NEWSWEEK has learned that the Feds gave Martha another opportunity to avoid prison. Federal prosecutors offered Martha a deal last April to cop to one count of making a false statement, say several sources familiar with the offer. She would have received probation and continued working at her company, they say. But Martha refused to plead guilty to a felony, and a defense source says the Feds couldn't guarantee she'd stay out of jail.

Police now speculate that former federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna, whose mysterious death three months ago has never been explained, may have killed himself. We don't see it. Not with 36 superficial stab wounds and Luna found face down in a creek. Some experts say the number of wounds don't rule out suicide, they could be "hesitation wounds."

We think the investigation got botched along the way. Why? How many times does this happen in a federal murder investigation?

When an unidentified female FBI agent was found to have "referred several cases to Luna" for prosecution she was "questioned about her private life," "ordered to turn over her private computer for a search" and was "asked if she had been having an affair" with Luna. The agent "denied the implication" and "protested the questioning." FBI headquarters now admits that interrogation was "wrong," and may have been prompted by "personal" animosities on the part of supervisory agents. The "potentially inappropriate behavior" is now under internal investigation, according to a bureau spokesman.

The Luna homicide had been under the direction of former acting Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Love....Now, a senior agent working for Love - and possibly Love herself - appear to be the subject of the internal FBI probe.

Then there's this unresolved angle:

As the FBI looked into Luna's background and financial situation after his death, agents reopened a probe into $36,000 in missing evidence in a bank robbery case that Luna prosecuted in September 2002. As the trial ended, authorities discovered that the money had vanished while being transported from the courtroom to a storage area. The FBI investigated the disappearance, but the case is unsolved.

Luna left behind a wife, children and parents. We think the investigation should continue--it should not get shut down as a suicide without more evidence than that disclosed to date.

The former prosecutors and white-collar lawyers interviewed for this article predict that Martha Stewart's guidelines will be 10 to 16 months--a level 12, which is in Zone C of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Here's how we initially calculate Martha's guidelines:

by TChris

Did the Justice Department single out Martha Stewart for prosecution because she's a celebrity? Or because she's a high profile supporter of Democrats? A news analysis in the New York Times poses these questions in the aftermath of Stewart's conviction.

As the Times points out, Stewart was essentially convicted of lying about a stock trade that saved her about $45,000. Small potatoes compared to the allegations made against Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski, Enron's Jeffrey Skilling or WorldCom's Bernard Ebbers, who reportedly "defrauded investors, stole tens of millions of dollars or drove their companies into the ground, or some combination of the three."

With so many sharks to catch, why go after a goldfish?

Ms. Stewart has long been a lightning rod because she has been politically active, female, powerful and rich, and perhaps because she has managed to straddle class lines in her dual roles as a celebrity and an adviser on taste.

Ms. Stewart's supporters have contended that the decision to prosecute her was motivated by the desire to take down a popular and very public female chief executive. Some say she became a target for prosecution because she supported members of the Democratic Party; others say she simply was not part of an old-boy network.

Mary Becker, a law professor at DePaul, says Stewart was "a wonderful target to show that the administration is serious about fraud. ... Lots of publicity doesn't disturb any of the old boys or anybody who made a significant amount of money."

Yet the case can be made that charges were brought quickly against Stewart because there was so little evidence against her to sift through, while the more complex charges of corporate fraud that prosecutors are beginning to bring take more time to prepare. Others argue that there is value in making an example of celebrities in light of the common observation that the affluent often escape justice while the powerless lose their liberty for less serious transgressions.

The easy (if naive) answer is that the criminal justice system should treat celebrities -- whether Martha Stewart or Rush Limbaugh -- in the same way it treats the poorest offender. That's what equal protection of the law is all about. By the same token, an accused's position on the political spectrum should not influence decisions about prosecution or sentencing.

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.

by TChris

Monday morning quarterbacking begins on Saturday as analysts dissect Martha Stewart's defense, sometimes harshly.

"She should get her money back from her lawyers," said Thomas Ajamie, a veteran Houston securities attorney. "How this even went to trial in the first place, I have no idea."

Keep in mind that the decisions to go to trial and to testify (or not) belong to the accused, not to the lawyer. Martha Stewart made those decisions. It's easy to understand why she wanted to exercise her right to a trial. She faced financial and reputational disaster, as well as the risk of incarceration. We don't know what (if any) deal the prosecution was willing to offer her. Without having all of the information that Stewart assessed, it isn't fair to second guess her decision, and it certainly isn't fair to criticize her lawyer.

by TChris

Roy Black, representing Rush Limbaugh with regard to allegations that Limbaugh illegally obtained prescription pain medication, made a statement yesterday comparing Limbaugh to Palm Beach County Judge Robert Schwartz:

"After admitting an eight-year addiction, Judge Schwartz entered treatment voluntarily and was praised by the community, not investigated and never prosecuted by the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office. This was sensitive and appropriate for someone facing such a difficult personal challenge. All we're asking is that Rush Limbaugh be treated the same."

Moral of the story: it's good to be a judge.

Second moral: Whether an addicted drug user is a liberal, a loud-mouth conservative, a judge, a plumber, rich or poor, treatment -- not prosecution -- is the best solution to the problem.

by TChris

Legendary rock artist David Crosby was arrested yesterday for possessing marijuana and a .45 caliber handgun. Crosby had checked out of a Times Square hotel but reportedly left behind a piece of luggage. A hotel employee searching the luggage for identification found the gun and the pot. Police arrested Crosby when he returned to the hotel to claim the luggage.

The founding member of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash has been in trouble before for drug and weapons violations, and served some prison time before a conviction in Texas was overturned. This is Crosby's mugshot from the Texas arrest.

We're doing our part....

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by TChris

A federal jury found Martha Stewart guilty on all counts.

Martha Stewart was convicted Friday of obstructing justice and lying to the government about a superbly timed stock sale, a devastating verdict that probably means prison for the woman who epitomizes meticulous homemaking and gracious living.

Under the federal sentencing guidelines, it will be an uphill battle for Stewart to avoid incarceration. She was not taken into custody pending sentencing, but must report to a federal probation office next week to be interviewed for a presentence report. The report will provide the court with information about Martha Stewart's life, and with a recommendation as to the appropriate sentencing guideline to apply to her case. Judges have discretion to impose a sentence within a fairly narrow guideline range, but have very little discretion to depart from the guideline.

Stewart's co-defendant, Peter Bacanovic, was convicted on all but one count.

Stewart is scheduled to be sentenced on June 17.

by TChris

A federal perjury charge must be supported by the testimony of two witnesses, or of one witness whose story is supported by an independent document. But what does "independent" mean?

Richard M. Strassberg, the lawyer for Martha Stewart's stockbroker and co-defendant, Peter E. Bacanovic, argued in response to a question from the jury that an "independent" document must be a document created by someone other than the testifying witness. That would seem a sensible interpretation. If the function of a second witness is to provide independent corroboration of the testimony of the first witness, it would stand to reason that a document which substitutes for the second witness should come from a second, "independent" source.

Unfortunately for Bacanovic, that isn't the way Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum reads the law.

Judge Cedarbaum's ruling said effectively that the requirement was fulfilled by the testimony of an employee of Ms. Stewart's, Ann E. Armstrong, and phone logs kept by Ms. Armstrong.

The judge said that there were two reasons why the two pieces of evidence in question were independent and legitimate: Ms. Armstrong did not rely on the phone log for her testimony, and the phone logs were legitimate documents because they had been kept "in the normal course of business."

The judge gave that answer to the jury this morning. The jury continues its deliberations today on the charges against Baconovic and Stewart.

by TChris

Jurors pondering the charges against Martha Stewart's co-defendant, Peter Bacanovic, sent an interesting question to the judge. They're wondering what it takes to prove perjury.

U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum told jurors before deliberations that perjury requires special rules: Jurors must rely on testimony from two witnesses, or one witness whose testimony is supported by a document.

In a note Thursday, the jurors asked whether it was enough to have the testimony of one witness plus a document created by the same witness.

"I think the short answer is yes,'' Cedarbaum said.

On its face, the answer may be bad for Bacanovic. Still, all the jurors would have to agree that the witness and the supporting document are so believable as to exclude reasonable doubt before finding Bacanovic guilty.

The question suggests that the jurors are focusing on Bacanovic. Now in their second day of deliberations, they may have already decided Martha Stewart's fate.

by TChris

The first stage of Scott Peterson's murder trial -- jury selection -- began today as prospective jurors filled out lengthy questionairres. The precise content of the questionairres has not been disclosed, but the one-hundred-plus questions apparently include "whether they read Field and Stream magazine, what stickers grace their car bumpers and whether they've ever lost a child."

Potential jurors in Peterson's case will eventually be questioned individually by prosecutors and defense lawyers, outside the presence of other potential jurors. Jury selection is expected to take four to six weeks.