The key plank of Martha Stewart's pending appeal comes as no surprise:
Martha Stewart's lead attorney Robert Morvillo intends to appeal her conviction by arguing the judge unfairly prevented him from explaining to the jury Stewart had not been charged with criminal insider trading, according to a person close to the defense team.
"We think that was important," a person knowledgeable with the strategy told CNNfn. "Some of the jury comments afterwards indicated they felt they were punishing her for the trade. We should have been able to explain you're not being asked to judge the propriety of the trade."
Prosecutor Karen Seymour in her opening argument said Stewart "was told a secret tip" from broker Bacanovic that "the head of ImClone was trying to get rid of his shares." "Morvillo was never allowed to clarify that," the source said. "If you're looking at the state of mind of Martha Stewart you need to know there's no underlying crime to cover up."It's not a legally very strong case, in my view, but it makes a key moral point about this indictment; namely, the oddity (if not outright unfairness) of charging somebody with lying to you about an underlying activity you decide not to prosecute. Given that the jury clearly was impacted by the prosecutor's "secret tip" allegations, as well in all probability by outside of court publicity, Judge Cedarbaum's refusal to allow Morvillo to drive the point home has long struck me as singularly unfair.
