Martha was not convicted on anything to do with the sale of her stock, DougR, she was convicted on one of those recently devised "lying to investigators" crimes. It's the kind of charge that shouldn't be allowed to be used if there is not actually enough evidence to charge an individual with a "real" crime. People have responded to this argument with the example "Al Capone wasn't charged on bootlegging, the IRS got him on tax evasion." Like bootlegging was a crime and tax evasion wasn't? He was guilty of multiple crimes. I don't think the case can be made that Martha was guilty of any crimes, only of dithering when she described her actions regarding an email she received (she deleted it then undeleted it, realizing it was probably something she should leave alone). Even though she's serving this time to get it out of the way she still has an appeal on file. She's smart--and realizes that even if she were to file and win the appeal, all of the time until that trial and during it would be the same as serving a long prison sentence, because she couldn't get any other kind of work done due to the cloud over her. This way it's out of the way, and perhaps she'll get a good book out of it, and she'll be able to move forward whatever the outcome of the appeal.

DeLay hasn't been charged, but I live in hope that Ronnie Earle is not only able to charge him but to take him down. Now we'll see how long he can serve the republican party from prison.

SRS