Law Related Article

Posted by Winnie Melda on January 16th, 2019

What the Martha Stewart Case tells us about White Collar Crimes in America

Introduction

These are the white collar crime age. No wonder most times the words businessman and thieves go hand in hand. The term White Collar coining is 1939.Now very much similar to frauds committed by officials in government and business people. In my opinion, the crime should get full government attention as it is not a crime without victims and it’s not easy watching a single scam destroy a company, bring upon families devastation by taking all their live savings, or cost investors billions of dollars. Today’s fraud schemes are more sophisticated than ever, for instance, the Martha Stewart case that made headlines and the basis of this article. It was a crime that most people did not understand and at some point they though her prosecution was based on who she was rather than what she did (Moohr, 2006).

Huston Law Review

The article can tell us more about white collar crime using the facts of Martha Stewart Case. Stewart’s case can illustrate several Federal Criminal Laws nuances that are general issues peculiar to white collar crime and concern the federal white collar criminal law and its enforcement. The article systematically builds on white collar crime by starting from the very nature of Martha Stewart case, Goes-ahead to discuss the decisions to indict by the prosecution, the crimes that charging, the trial and finally the sentence (Moohr, 2006).

The investigation

It is in this part that the article tells us more on Marta Stewart trade and begins to discuss the effects of being a public figure in such a crime. The author talks about collateral consequences as business markets; newsrooms react to such a case and talks of so many leaks taking place on the case progress. The author supports the argument using a precision case of Arthur Anderson Partnership. There is mention of the expected consequences of such a crime on the company associated with the defendant. In Arthur Anderson case, it was turmoil as the companies became a shadow of its former self (Moohr, 2006).

Omnimedia Martha’s company saw similar consequences as the share prices of the company dropped drastically by the end of March 2004 after the verdict announcement and the revenues dropped to 17%.There were also political as well as the personal consequence feeling during the investigation of Martha’s Trade (Moohr, 2006).

The investigation of Stewart’s ImClone sale passed from House Energy and Commerce Committee to the Justice Department in September 2002.Thi part of the article clearly demonstrate the hierarchy in civil cases and, in particular, White Collar Crime. The article elaborates the change of hands in the investigation. White collar crimes are a federal criminal law matter and any changes in the laws is made by Congress (Moohr, 2006).

As per the article white collar crime stake, a long time due to the conduct of transactions occur in private and often cloaked in secrecy, and also witnesses are often absent and it is hard for investigators to follow paper trail even when the transactions are known such in the Case of Martha (Moohr, 2006).

THE INDICTMENT

In a white collar crime to indict-or-not-rests at the discretion of the federal prosecutor in charge of the case but it’s the jury that investigating that decides whether a criminal charge is warranted. Since the prosecutor influence is massive over the jury in practice the decision to indict rests with the government, not its citizens (Moohr, 2006).

Conclusion

The cases tell us a lot about white collar crime and I support the author’s way of portraying white collar crime through the case. This is why I support the article; it tells us insider trade laws are still in need of development as well as securities fraud. The crime of false statement, conspiracy, and obstruction although important they are still overbroad and duplicative (Moohr, 2006)..

Further, the criminal statute is vague as it lacks the breadth and the depth of the federal criminal code, civil and criminal standard merger and policies on sentencing. I totally agree with the author remarks as thought the criminal justice process from making the law to sentencing the enormous discretion of a given federal prosecution standards out. The article raises important issues that threaten the integrity and efficacy of the law as well as the federal criminal justice system. The author concludes with certain sentiments that make too much sense. “I leave you with this thought: If Martha, an educated woman, a wealthy person, with an experienced defense counsel, was caught in the web of statutes and enforcement powers outlined in the article, we should get concerned about the plight of the most typical offender (Moohr, 2006).

Reference

Moohr, G. S. (2006). What the Martha Stewart Case Tells Us About White Collar Crime. Houston Law Review, 43, 592.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in term paper help online if you need a similar paper you can place your order from Cheap Custom Research Papers Online.