Eat the Rich...with a little nutmeg for extra flavour?

If she was concerned about the livelihood of her employees, she should have thought of that before breaking the law.

 

I am sure that most Americans would like to believe that everyone gets equal treatment under the law, but I think that everyone EXCEPT the rich and powerful recognizes that money and influence have a HUGE influence on crime and punishment in this country.

Sad but true.

 

uh.......see OJ as proof that the rich and powerful, with enough cash, can buy justice. Guess he's out still looking for the real killers, eh?

 

I think her lawyers should have to accompany her in her jail term for suggesting something so stupid.

If we're talking about being pragmatic, the social cost of confirming that there is a different sort of justice applied to the rich would be far greater than the temporary unemployment of thousands of people. It will encourage more crime among the rich who see the deterrent lifted, more crime by the poor rebelling against an unjust system, depressed morale among workers, and a slackening of integrity throughout society. I'm willing to take the hit from the collapse of a poorly-structured company (how smart is it to base the viability of a large company on one person?) over the deleterious effects of saving it. After all, other companies are already filling Martha Stewart's niche, and they'll likely be hiring her employees.

 

Interesting topic, MacB.

You have me wondering how such ruling would have applied to WorldCom or Enron...

 

They actually are relevant concerns. It is an interesting situation because it is rare the one individual is so closely tied to the well being of the corporation itself.

All that being said, you can't allow somebody to set that precident. Otherwise, others will inevitabely attempt to utilize that as a defense too maybe even before sentencing.

So it is tough love, but if somebody is that directly tied to the well being of so many people, they have a moral responsibility to society. In my mind, they gotta go to jail.

 

I noticed that too. Interesting thread, lacking from the bile we usually see in the D & D. I agree with whoever it was that said she should have thinking about the consequences, both to her freedom and her employees, before she broke the law.

 

With Stewart, isn’t the damage already done? Didn’t the value of her company begin to decline (perhaps not as precipitously), not with her conviction, but with the initial allegation/investigation of her Imclone wrongdoing?

JuanValdez articulated the counterarguments better than I could, but with this aspect, it seems to me that there’s no need to make justice’s short-sightedness law. In business, which correlates with some precision to wealth, appearance seems paramount. Not many of the Enron, Worldcom, etc. executives have been convicted/entered pleas, yet those companies seem irrevocably wounded. Even Simpson is no longer strutting the NBC sidelines in his Bruno Maglis, or hurdling suitcases in his sprints to the rent-a-car line.

I don’t think we need to codify the tacit division of justice between rich and poor. As long as the press is doing its job (granted, a big if), or stockholders do their homework (“), merely the possibility of malfeasance, not the conviction for it, should be enough to scare the wealthy away from breaking the law with abandon.

There’s a correlation here, I think, to politics: I’m thinking of Nixon/Watergate tapes, and (hopefully) Cheney/energy council.

 

Too much of a double-standard. If I commit a crime as a middle-manager, I'm screwed...but once I get the top job, I can do what I want, knowing that I'll only get a slap on the wrist. So much for the deterrance of criminal behavior.

 

Only one of hundreds or maybe thousands of examples.

 

I agree this is a terrible argument. Under that reasoning not only could any rich corporate leader lessen there sentence but so could any prominent figure. A mayor indicted of embezzling could argue that to convict him would damage the running of the city and hurt tourism.

To undermine the rule of law will do far more damage to our economy than giving breaks to prominent figures.

 

Maybe its just that we can't stand Martha Stewart.

 

Why can't her several hundred million in assets just be distributed to the employees/shareholders while she rots in jail? Better yet, give her the chair and let the employees retain exclusive filming rights so they can copies of the video for $69.95 and recoup some of their losses.

 

It sticks out, like a pair of bloody gloves or a white Bronco. Remember the surreal nature of that chase?

 

Only because I was SOOOOOOO pissed that we were watching that instead of the FRICKING NBA FINALS!!!

 

Exactly. My thoughts were "He was a once-great athlete who was reduced to being the punchline in the Naked Gun films and now.....they're going wall-to-wall with this!?" Arrggh!!!!!!!!

 

The part that REALLY pissed me off is that they preempted the Houston/New York game IN HOUSTON AND NEW YORK! I might be able to understand preempting a sitcom or NYPD Blue, but that was a frickin' Finals game.

grrrr