Martha Stewart

I know this is old news, but I was assigned a paper on this topic so I decided to put my preliminary thoughts here.

I was thinking about the Martha Stewart conviction tonight as a result of an assignment in my Business Law II class. The assignment requires the reading of several newspaper articles about the development and analysis of the trial, followed by several articles on business ethics. After having read the articles I am supposed to write my own analysis on business ethics as it relates to the Stewart case. The Prof. said that students may cite other articles if necessary. So I decided that perhaps I should cite one article I remember from Reason Magazine a year or so ago titled “Why Martha Stewart Should Go to Heaven and the SEC Should Go to Hell.” I think the title of that article alone might be enough to receive a grade of F on the assignment.

Before I even went back to reread that article from Reason for more information, I have written down my general thoughts on this case from over a year ago. I will use this assignment as an opportunity to argue that the government was the guiltiest party of ethics violations in prosecuting Stewart for allegedly lying about the reasons she dumped her stock in Imclone.

In the government’s never ending quest to punish people for crimes in which there is no victim, it created hundreds if not thousands of victims by calling out the dogs on Martha Stewart. How many stock holders of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia as well as stockholders of K-Mart lost large percentages of their investments when those stocks tanked after news of the government’s prosecution and subsequent conviction of Stewart broke? A verdict based on the government’s contention that Stewart lied to federal agents about her reasons for selling her stock in Imclone.

Which action was the greater evil?