I wonder how Virginia would assess Martha Stewart’s risk

Two interesting news items today from east coast posts almost cry out to be merged: this story from the New York Post reports that the “feds are investigating whether former jailbird Martha Stewart violated the rules of her house arrest when she attended a Time magazine gala last week,” while this story from the Washington Post reports that Virginia is set to expand the use of its controversial “risk assessment” instrument to “help figure out whether criminals who violate the terms of their probation should be sent back to prison for years or diverted to lower-security detention centers for several months.”

Reading the stories in sequence led me to wonder what Martha might score on Virginia’s risk assessment measures.  My guess is that all white-collar offenders do pretty well within Virginia’s risk assessment instrument (and I think this sample worksheet from Virginia might be similar to what would be used to “score” Martha). 

Needless to say, the NY Post treats the Martha story with levity (quoting comedian Jon Stewart), while the Wash Post treats the Virginia story with gravitas (quoting Virginia sentencing commission director Rick Kern).  Meanwhile, Ellen Podgor over at the White Collar Crime Prof Blog in this post raises some interesting questions about the Martha story.