Meryl Yourish says
Martha Stewart is being railroaded. I’m still waiting to hear the Enron indictments. Ken Lay? Ken Lay? Call your office.
It’s been so long since Enron was on my radar screen that I had just presumed Lay had been indicted; indeed, he has not, at least as of last month. Of course, a grand jury has been empaneled for months and hasn’t yet indicted Lay despite the old saw that a prosecutor can persuade a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. I guess it’s possible that he is in fact merely incompetent rather than guilty of a crime, although it is rather hard to believe.
Yourish cites a piece by Virginia Postrel which argues that the statute under which Stewart was ultimately indicted is pernicious and subject to abuse. Interesting. I take it for granted that laws are subject to abuse, although I frankly don’t know enough about this specific statute to offer anything beyond the link.
