On May 9, 2007, at 5:22 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote:
> Personally, I'd rather see her wearing a signboard out in front of
> one of the clubs she frequents, but I haven't given it much more
> thought than that. I was in favor of freeing Martha Stewart though.
Martha was a victim of the federal practice of trying to trap people into lying to a federal agent just to jail them, even if they weren't necessarily guilty of a crime in the first place. That's really sleazy and outrageous.
By the way, I saw some stats recently about how few cases actually go to trial now (at the state/local level as well as the federal). Defendants are threatened with long prison terms and encouraged to agree to a plea bargain, which nets them just a few years behind bars. Anyone see these? I can't recover them...