You may recall – Martha Stewart Summary Essay

You may recall that style guru Martha Stewart was imprisoned as a result of an investigation into an insider-trading scheme. The case caused quite a bit of controversy since Martha did not present a danger to society, and she was not convicted of insider trading but of the charge of lying to federal investigators. As trial attorney Kevin Mahoney put it:
It is a shameful day. The federal government will imprison a woman for lying to its investigators. Not a lie that stampeded a county into an unnecessary war, that defrauded the country of millions of dollars, or endangered people’s lives. The lie was no more than the denial of wrongdoing, a protestation of innocence. Shame on us for permitting our government to terrorize us.
Yet the people who were shocked when décor diva Stewart did time seem to have no problem with imprisoning a lower-class woman who is caught possessing drugs. Even though both crimes have no discernible victim. Martha’s white-collar crime seemed like the more trivial offense-----or was it?
Write an essay that confronts this critical issue: Is it ethical to imprison nondangerouswhite-collar criminals to set an example, or should they merely suffer financial penalties? What is the purpose of putting someone like Martha Stewart in prison for a trivial white-collar offense? Is she a danger to society? Is multibillion-dollar Swindler Bernard Madoff? Or would it be better, to quote Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy in the classic 1983 film Trading Places), You know, it occurs to me that the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people”?