This Martha Stuart case illuminates one of things necessary to be a really good prosecutor: You have to KNOW that the defendant did it, even before you have any evidence. In a prosecutor's world, there is really no finding out they didn't do it. There is only not finding enough evidence to convict them of doing what you know they did. Every protestation of innocence is merely proof that the defendant is a cold-blooded liar, every failure to find documents merely proves the defendant is hiding them or destroying them, and every excuplatory witness is in on the deal.

This isn't a criticism. To be effective, a prosecutor has to be this way. The sad fact is that there are a lot of defendants who are cold blooded liars that destroy documents, and a lot of witnesses who have something to gain. If you aren't cynical, you'll never convict anyone who can walk and chew gum at the same time. Instead of changing that attitude among prosecutors, we count on a larger system to ensure the right results. That's why we separate executive and judicial functions, have grand juries (for whatever they are worth, which is not much), allow defense lawyers, and give prosecutors elected bosses.

In Martha's case, it looks like the last of those methods has failed; the elected bosses seem to have an incentive to "make an example of Martha" (query whether prosecuting someone becasue they are famous is an example we want to set). So, Martha's got to count on the other parts of the system to save her, because the prosecutors - they're SURE she is guilty of insider trading and should go to jail, but, since they can't get her on that, they'll do what they can.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 11:27 AM