Stewart Calls for Sentencing Reform

Martha Stewart's lawyers filed a new appeal of her conviction.

Martha Stewart lobbied, in a Christmas message posted on her Web site yesterday, for criminal sentencing reform and complained about the "bad food" at the West Virginia prison where she is serving a five-month sentence for lying about a personal stock sale.

"When one is incarcerated with 1,200 other inmates, it is hard to be selfish at Christmas," Stewart wrote from the federal prison in Alderson, W. Va. "I beseech you all to think about these women -- to encourage the American people to ask for reforms, both in sentencing guidelines, in length of incarceration for nonviolent first-time offenders, and for those involved in drug-taking. They would be much better served in a true rehabilitation center than in prison."

Stewart wrote that she has had a lot of time on her hands, "time to think, time to write, time to exercise, time to not eat the bad food, and time to walk and contemplate the future."

"Cleaning has been my job -- washing, scrubbing, sweeping, vacuuming, raking leaves, and much more. But like everyone else here, I would rather be doing all of this in my own home."

Stewart's company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., has been making plans for the domesticity entrepreneur to host a daytime television show in the fall.

The new posting on www.marthatalks.comcame as Stewart's attorneys filed another brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to overturn her conviction.

The 56-page brief, like previous filings, argues that the trial was irretrievably tainted by alleged lies by a government ink expert and a juror and by the trial judge's refusal to allow Stewart's lawyers to bring in experts to argue she had not committed insider trading. The brief also said a U.S. Supreme Court decision that came down after the trial means that the government should not have been able to play a tape recording of her co-defendant and former broker Peter E. Bacanovic's testimony to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The appeals court is unlikely to rule before her scheduled release in March. Stewart is then scheduled to serve five months of home confinement in Bedford, N.Y.