Of Martha and "bully justice"

Of Martha and “bully justice”

Martha Stewart, convicted liar. [AP]

The Martha Stewart verdict has put me in a mind to wonder about the direction of the American justice system. The Bush administration's get-tough approach to corporate misdeeds is admirable, but may be veering into the realm of (surprise!) bullying.

This administration bullies everyone else: its enemies, its allies, its trading partners, its own citizens, news reporters... why not corporate honchos? Don't get me wrong; I'm all for grabbing Enron and Worldcom executives by the balls and twisting like a gator, but we have to follow the rule of law and do it right.

The Stewart verdict is a case in point. Martha was accused of some pretty dirty dealing; namely: securities fraud. But that charge was thrown out by the judge as ridiculous (she's: A, not a stock broker any more and B, got an inherent right to claim she's not guilty), which means that only the various charges of lying to federal investigators stuck. That's what she was convicted of: lying about an unprovable crime.

But the prosecutor and some of the jury members actually said that they were "sending a message" to corporate baddies. That message? Well, it's not "don't lie to the cops." It's "don't commit securities fraud." Wait. What did we convict her of again?

Protectin' and servin' with the chief and his top cop.

This makes me hark back to the heady days of Whitewater, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, and a $80 million investigation that turned up bupkis. Actually, it was less than bupkis; it was lying about sex. President Clinton was impeached on the petty charge that he had lied to federal investigators (don't puss out; it's petty). Impeachment isn't technically a criminal conviction, but it's a hell of a punishment for a president. And we all know what he was really being punished for: shady land deals and being a dirty dog.

This, in turn, reminds me of the Army chaplain down in Guantanamo Bay who was accused of espionage... or was it treason? Whatever. He was never charged. They had no evidence against him for it. But they did have evidence that he had committed adultery, had pornography on a military laptop computer, and had failed to secure some documents (that may or may not have been classified, no one was sure). Be still my heart! They're going to punish him for that?! This is especially egregious, because the guy apparently really isn't guilty of anything bad. But, at this point, the military is so geared up against him that they have to find something to punish him for, just to justify their embarrassing investigation.

Call me crazy, but it's unseemly to pursue someone for a such minor charges just because your big whopping charges have fallen thru. It makes me uncomfortable in a niggling, constitutional sense.

Let's imagine that Martha Stewart, having been convicted on four counts that each carry a potential five-year sentence (plus fine), gets the book thrown at her. So she goes to jail for a decade or more for "lying" when in fact we're really punishing her—let's face it—for securities fraud. Is that fair? Isn't that unconstitutional? Isn't it a violation of due process or something? I don't even like Martha Stewart, but this has me squirming over her fate.

Imagine a wholly hypothetical scenario: a man is caught on private property with a knife by police responding to a rape call. The cops have no case for the rape, but they can get convictions for trespassing, carrying a concealed weapon, "resisting arrest without violence" because he tried to run, and a few other misdemeanors they cook up. So the community smugly watches while the judge throws the book at the defendant and sends him up for the maximum on all counts, a total of five years, which happens to be—coincidentally, mind you—an average sentence for rape. What they've really done is punish the guy for a rape they couldn't prove. That's unwholesome; maybe even unconstitutional.

But now imagine that the poor dope isn't even guilty. A few years later, the real perp confesses. Sure, our guy did those minor things he was convicted of, but say he was trespassing because he heard the victim's screams, he was armed because there have been other crimes in the neighborhood, and he ran because he was trespassing with a weapon. That's not worth five years; heck, not even five minutes. So now what do we do? Apologize?

Prosecutors need to be called on it when they prosecute tangential crimes in place of real crimes. And judges need to be reminded of their constitutional obligations to due process when handing down judgments. We can't punish someone for crimes we can't prove just because we got them on other, lesser transgressions. We need to maintain perspective.

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