Martha Madness

Martha Stewart went to prison today. It is a minimum security facility. There won’t be any German Shepherds nipping at her as she tries to scale razor wire at the top of a wall.

But she won’t try to escape. She will do her time. As much for business reasons as any other, she wants and needs to get this all behind her.

I never much cared for Martha (although some of her recipes were excellent). And I admit that a disturbing part of me enjoyed watching the "perfect person" taken down a notch (I don’t think highly of that part of me, but I’ll ‘fess to it).

Somehow I don’t think I ever believed that she was actually going to end up behind bars. But now she really is in jail. And I have difficulty accepting that she deserves to spend 5 months there.

Yes. She did something dumb. And then lied about it which was dumber. Didn’t she learn anything from Nixon and Clinton? It’s the lies that get you, not the act. They didn’t bust her for insider trading. She was convicted for lying. (Two counts of making false statements plus one count of conspiracy and one of obstruction of justice.)

Since when did we as a society start throwing people in prison for saying "I’m not guilty"? Which, when you look at the charges, is more or less what she is in jail for. Lying to the government used to be a noble tradition in this country.

But what next? Will we threaten all criminal defendants with extra jail time if they plead "not guilty" at their arraignment? "Aha," says the district attorney, "We want to amend the indictment to add counts for making false statements and obstructing justice because the defendant says he isn’t guilty. And ... he and his lawyer were whispering about what he should say so that is a conspiracy charge as well."

Isn’t there something wrong here? If we couldn’t convict Martha for illegal insider trading or other substantive crime ... why exactly is she going to be sitting in jail longer than many people who beat their wives to a pulp? Or rob a house at gunpoint?

OJ has got to be laughing his head off in his Florida mansion.