THE TRIAL OF MARTHA STEWART and PETER BACANOVIC
Is this another wrongful conviction?
THE "FALSE STATEMENT" CHARGES AGAINST MARTHA, DO NOT CONTAIN MARTHA'S OWN WORDS!
EVIDENCE FROM THE TRIAL THAT THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW:
--MARTHA STEWART VOLUNTARILY ATTENDED A MEETING WITH TWO SEC ATTORNEYS, TWO ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEYS AND AN FBI AGENT, WHERE:
1. SHE WAS NOT UNDER OATH
2. THERE WAS NO COURT REPORTER OR OTHER ELECTRONIC RECORDING OF HER TESTIMONY
3. THE ONLY RECORD OF WHAT WAS SAID, WAS THE HANDWRITTEN NOTES TAKEN BY MS. FARMER, AN FBI AGENT
4. ON THE STAND, WHILE UNDER OATH, AGENT FARMER ADMITTEDTHAT SHE DID NOT TAKE DOWN MARTHA'S TESTIMONY WORD- FOR- WORD!
5. THE FBI AGENT'S NOTES DID NOT CONTAIN THE QUESTIONS THAT MARTHA WAS BEING ASKED...HER NOTES ONLY CONTAINED MARTHA'S ANSWERS!!!
6. ON THE STAND, WHILE UNDER OATH, AGENT FARMER WAS ASKED HOW SHE INDICATED IN HER NOTES THAT SOMEONE OTHER THAN MARTHA WAS SPEAKING. SHE SAID THAT SHE "PUT BRACKETS AROUND THE OTHER PERSON'S WORDS".
YET, UNDER CROSS EXAMINATION IT WAS SHOWN THAT THE LAWYER REPRESENTING MARTHA DURING THAT MEETING HAD MADE A STATEMENT THAT AGENT FARMER INCLUDED IN HER NOTES, AND THERE WERE NO BRACKETS AROUND HIS WORDS. THE DEFENSE ASKED THE AGENT WHY THIS HAPPENED. HER ANSWER WAS:
"SOMETIMES I PUT BRACKETS, AND SOMETIMES I DONT."
ISN'T IT STRANGE THAT A PERSON'S LIFE IS PUT IN THE HANDS OF SOMEONE'S BRACKETS?
THE PUBLIC SHOULD BE OUTRAGED!
7. THE FBI AGENT TESTIFIED THAT TAKING HANDWRITTEN NOTES RATHER THAN HAVING A COURT REPORTER TRANSCRIBE THE NOTES IS THE NORMAL "PRACTICE " OF THE FBI!
SO THEN, THE STATEMENTS ALLEGED TO HAVE BEEN MADE BY MARTHA ARE ACTUALLY STATEMENTS REMEMBERED BY, OR INTERPRETATIONS BY, AGENT FARMER IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT THE LAW SAYS THAT WHEN A CHARGE OF LYING IS PRESENTED TO THE JURY, IT MUST CONTAIN THE PRECISE QUESTION AND ANSWER, IN CONTEXT.
IN MARTHA'S CASE, THE CHARGES ARE BASED NOT ON EXACTLY WHAT SHE SAID, BUT RATHER ON WHAT SOMEONE ELSE THOUGHT THEY HEARD HER SAY!
WHEN THE RIGHTS OF ONE PERSON ARE VIOLATED, THE RIGHTS OF EVERY PERSON ARE VIOLATED.
The current news reports of what Martha supposedly said about adjusting to prison is upsetting. "The camp is like an old-fashioned college campus" the media says?
Incarceration should never be portrayed in the media as positive. Prison will never be the same for Martha as it is for most other people. She is relatively safe because of her high profile. Not so for others. Because there is no one watching, some inmates are subjected to many forms of abuse, including torture. People die in jails or prisons "under suspicious circumstances", or from being murdered by fellow inmates. The Bureau of Justice Statistics says in U.S. prisons, from 2000 through 2002, the number of homicides against inmates in custody that were not committed by other inmates was 30.
You can imagine the stress in a family when they learn that instead of a "Camp Cupcake" type facility, their loved ones are put in a place like the Sacramento county jail where there was a history of guards using "The Chair", a restraining device that has led to many serious abuses, including torture and death. Belts and cuffs prevent the prisoner's legs, arms, and torso from moving. Prisoners have been tortured by being hooded, pepper-gassed, beaten, or threatened with electrocution while in these chairs.
Use of the restraint chair is widespread: Jails, state and federal prisons, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, state mental hospitals, juvenile detention centers, and foreign governments are all equipped with the chair.
Deaths that occurred in connection with the use of restraint chairs alone numbered at least 15 by 2002, according to Amnesty International.
"...I think what happens is that a lot of little things happen. The jury gets totally confused and in the end you can convict someone on a bunch of evidence that i s basically meaningless" John Small, founder of:
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,"it means just what I choose it to mean - nothing more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
PETER BACANOVIC
CONVICTED OF PERJURY WITHOUT SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE??
"I hope at some point it's going to be clearer to me what you are charging. There are a lot of things in this indictment I don't know whether you are or are not charging." Judge Miriam Cedarbaum to Prosecutor Schachter
The radio reported this morning that a spokesman for Congress stated: that if Congress knew then what they know now about Iraq, we would never have gone to war.
Imagine that!
Thousands of innocent people would still be alive today and a small nation would not be in ruin , if only Congress had known the facts in time. Did America make a another mistake? After all, we do make mistakes all the time. Ask some of the death row inmates who are now free because of DNA or other conclusive evidence. Some of them spent more than 20 years in prison, under horrible conditions, for crimes they did not commit. Many times it was later discovered that this tragedy was a result of a lying witness or of a prosecutor's misconduct, who more often than not, was never held accountable.
My parents taught me that when you go camping, you leave the area exactly, or better, than the way you found it. If you borrow something from another person and you break it, you get it fixed or buy them a new one. Accountability. Each person is responsible for the results of their actions. Luckily, most of the time you are able to clean up a campsite, or repair or replace a broken item. But how do you make it up to someone whose life and liberty are taken away. Our most valuable possession, time, can not be replaced once it is lost, and each day we have less and less of it. To imprison someone is to steal their life away. Before we do that to Martha or Peter or anyone else, we need to be sure that the person was given a fair trial by a jury that had all the facts.
So, I ask you... where are the heroes when you need them? Heroes are people who in face of danger, are courageous anyway. Heroes are people who see wrongdoing by others, and refuse to join in. Only the heroes can change things. A few prosecutors from Chicago who knew that misconduct was happening in their offices, walked out of their jobs and went to the media. These people are heroes. Their courage resulted in a massive investigation which freed may innocent defendants, some who were waiting to die on death row.
Could there be any jurors from the trial of Martha Stewart and Peter Bacanovic who are having second thoughts and are thinking that, like Congress, if they knew then what they know now, they would have decided differently?
Annie McKenna
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