News Release

September 15, 2004

Media Contact: (202) 789-5200

Cato scholar: Martha Stewart's decision ends 'legal travesty'

Cato Senior Editor Gene Healy made the following comments today regarding Martha Stewart's request to begin immediately serving her prison sentence:

"With Martha Stewart's request today to begin serving her sentence immediately, the legal travesty that is the Stewart case may finally be coming to an end. Though many people think Stewart was charged with insider trading, that's not the case; instead, her conviction was based on misleading federal officials investigating the insider trading charge -- a charge they never pursued. In essence, Ms. Stewart is going to jail for proclaiming her innocence of a crime the government didn't have the evidence to charge her with. Her case illustrates well the problem of over-criminalization and the power it grants to ambitious prosecutors. That's a problem that threatens ordinary citizens--not just the rich and famous."

Gene Healy is the author of "Lessons of the Martha Stewart Case" and the editor of the forthcoming collection Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything.