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Non-Tech : Martha Stewart -- Scourge or Scapegoat -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: yard_man who wrote (136)	3/9/2004 2:29:43 PM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 165

Hi tippet, For me, I would not vote to convict unless I knew that she knew that Erbitux was being denied. Is that a higher standard than required by law?? Actually, the correct answer to your question is both yes and no. There are two standards to deal with, one for civil law and one for criminal law. Criminal law has, by far, the higher hurdles to clear necessary for a conviction. In criminal law, it's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and you need a full jury to agree on guilt or innocence. In civil law, it's preponderance of evidence, and one only needs a simple majority of jurors to prevail for either the plaintiffs or the defense. Evidence that would be allowable in a civil case is quite often excluded in a criminal case. Double standards, I guess... <g> I will not, if asked to serve on a jury, give much weight to a witness upon whom leverage was applied in this fashion. This is a fact material to you being a juror in many cases, and something that you would be required to disclose during the jury selection process. Not every trial involves a witness that has a plea bargain agreement, so you'd probably make a fine selection for a different trial. Niether will I participate in convicting someone in a "sting." Same answer as above during the jury selection process... I have pretty extreme views, I know, as relates to the powers of all the branches of government. You're probably not as alone in your viewpoints, nor as extreme, as you might think. I'd wager that many, many folks would agree with you. Will you not agree on a larger issue -- Martha is an example here -- that this IS about public relations -- not primarily to scare potential would be future offenders -- but rather to reassure J6P that the stock market isn't a cesspool which is run to transfer wealth from j6p to the powerful people?? Yes and no... <g> Certainly there are valid reasons to believe what you hypothesize. Martha makes an inviting target, and what better way than this to get a message across to an investing public... But I truly believe that the larger reason that the Feds went after her with a vengeance has much more to do with the fact that she lied to them than anything else. I don't know if you've ever met any of these Fed people before, but I've met a few in my life. You can insult them, call them names, belittle them or their government job, belittle their employer, pretty much anything rude and so on and these guys don't even flinch. Insults and rude behavior come with the territory, and they somewhat expect it. But if you lie to them they go ballistic. Now I'm sure that Martha's not the first person to ever lie to them. And I'm equally sure that they gave her ample opportunity to set the record straight. But once Martha went public with her claim of innocence, and after they knew she had lied, she most certainly did have a big target on her backside. No question about it. But that target was Martha's own doing. She's the one that was arrogant enough to think that she could go toe-to-toe with the Feds without a lawyer present. She was the one that arrogantly attempted to change the telephone records in the presence of witnesses (and then subsequently reversed her attempts). She was the one that arrogantly challenged federal authorities in her remarks to the public regarding her actions in the Imclone stock sale, and any possible fallout that might affect MSO stock. Martha has a long history of arrogance, a temper that is sometimes out of control, and a true disdain for people that she sees as being inferior to her own position in life, something we used to call extreme snobbishness. Of course, none of those traits are criminal. But her arrogance finally caught up to her. Best wishes to you... KJC