this is interesting. a man lies about the fact that he hates rich people and then gets on the martha stewart jury and convicts her. will the court reverse her conviction like it should? i doubt it but i dont have much faith in the government. Original Article Court hears Stewart appeal Judge wonders if man told lies to get on jury Erin McClam Associated Press Mar. 18, 2005 12:00 AM NEW YORK - With Martha Stewart looking on, a federal appeals judge Thursday sharply questioned a prosecutor about why no hearing was held into apparent lies told by a juror in the celebrity homemaker's trial. The exchange came as lawyers for Stewart, freed from prison earlier this month and now serving five months of house arrest, sought to persuade a three-judge appeals panel to overturn her conviction for lying to the government. Stewart is basing her appeal partly on the discovery that juror Chappell Hartridge lied repeatedly on his jury questionnaire, including about a prior arrest, to get on the jury. Judge Richard Wesley, one of the appeals judges, asked prosecutor Michael Schachter whether the trial had been tainted because the trial judge, Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, held no hearing into the lies by Hartridge. Wesley mused about why jurors might actively want to serve on certain high-profile juries: "I don't like rich people. I don't like people like Martha Stewart who are worth millions of dollars." "The problem is: Why did he lie?" Wesley continued. "And there is no answer to that because Judge Cedarbaum didn't do the hearing." Schachter defended the judge and said the convictions must be upheld, saying Cedarbaum had no obligation to hold a hearing because the defense failed to show Hartridge was deliberately dishonest. Stewart was convicted in March 2004 of lying to the government about why she sold nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone Systems Inc. stock the day before a negative government ruling about an ImClone cancer drug. The prosecutor also cited what he called "ample evidence" of Stewart's guilt, including evidence that her next call after selling ImClone was to the office of ImClone founder Sam Waksal demanding to know why the stock was falling. Waksal is serving a seven-year prison sentence after admitting he sold his own ImClone shares because he knew in advance that the government would decline to review the cancer drug Erbitux. Stewart was allowed to leave the Westchester County estate where she is under house arrest to attend the appeals hearing in Lower Manhattan. She is also allowed to leave her home 48 hours per week for work. Wearing a pantsuit that obscured the electronic monitoring bracelet she must wear on her ankle, Stewart appeared in a good mood, joking with marshals as she passed through a metal detector. She did not speak with reporters before or after the hearing. She fought through a phalanx of cameras afterward, a crush so chaotic that several photographers were knocked into a bank of slushy snow. The three-judge panel gave no indication of how or when it might rule. Stewart has said she is appealing the case to clear her name. Walter Dellinger, Stewart's appeals lawyer, also came under intense questioning from the judges when he suggested the conviction should be thrown out because of perjury allegations against a government witness. The witness, Secret Service ink expert Larry Stewart, was accused by prosecutors of exaggerating the role he played in testing a stock worksheet that was used as evidence at the trial. A separate jury acquitted him of perjury charges. Stewart was released from a federal women's prison in Alderson, W.Va., on March 4 after serving five months there, the first half of her sentence.