Two Trailblazers In Martha Case

As jury selection dragged on in the Martha Stewart case, another accomplished career woman scolded lawyers for "moving too slowly."

That woman, U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, also paused to discuss art with one potential juror, noting, "I share your interest in the Hudson River painters."

The exchanges jibed with Cedarbaum's reputation as a businesslike and erudite jurist. Admirers say she's well-suited to call the shots at the showcase white-collar trial in lower Manhattan.

"She's very, very deliberate and prudent," said veteran defense attorney Herald Price Fahringer. "Also very refined."

With Stewart in her courtroom, Cedarbaum, 74, is facing her highest-profile case in 18 years on the bench.

Stewart is accused of working with her former stockbroker to cook up a phony explanation for why she sold shares of ImClone Systems stock on Dec. 27, 2001, just before it plummeted on a negative regulatory report. She has denied the charges, suggesting the government wants to reduce a successful woman to a scapegoat.

A jury is expected to be seated Monday, and opening arguments are tentatively scheduled for Tuesday.

In pretrial hearings in the Stewart case, Cedarbaum has cut off lawyers when they start to repeat themselves, and admonished both sides for grandstanding and name-calling.

"We don't need speeches," she told Stewart attorney Robert Morvillo.

She has also antagonized the throng of reporters covering the trial with two pretrial orders: one cautioning the press to stay away from potential jurors, the other closing jury selection.

The judge claimed the unusual steps were needed to ensure a fair jury. She agreed to release transcripts of the juror interviews, minus the names.

Last week, 17 news groups, including The Associated Press, filed court papers arguing Cedarbaum violated the First Amendment. Although the appeal - to be heard Monday by a federal appeals court - comes too late to affect the Stewart trial, it could affect future cases.

Cedarbaum came under fire in 1993 in a similar juror-access issue. She told potential jurors at a mob trial that their identities would be kept confidential to keep reporters from contacting them.

But newspaper columnist Jerry Capeci said the ruling mandating an anonymous jury was based solely on fears that the mob defendants - not the press - might harass them. He wrote a scathing column accusing her of misleading jurors and smearing the media.

"She's come down on the press before," Capeci said when asked recently about Cedarbaum. "It's outrageous."

Like Stewart, the Brooklyn-born judge attended Barnard College. She later graduated from Columbia Law School in an era when few women pursued law careers.

In an interview this month with Newsday, she said she was inspired by an older sister, also a lawyer, "to whom it never occurred that there was anything that a girl couldn't do in an intellectual way."

Cedarbaum, who is married with two sons, joined the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan in 1954 - one of only two women out of 100 prosecutors.

She later worked for the Justice Department, where she was mentored by Lawrence E. Walsh, the independent counsel during the Iran-Contra affair. In 1979, she joined a Wall Street firm, and she served as an associate counsel for the Museum of Modern Art.

Her early experience on the bench came in the nuts-and-bolts world of village court in Scarsdale, N.Y., where she oversaw civil cases and small claims.

She was recommended for the federal bench by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1985. President Ronald Reagan agreed to nominate the registered Democrat, and she was confirmed by the Senate in 1986.

Over the years, Cedarbaum has dealt with a handful of other closely watched cases.

In 2001, she ordered then-heavyweight boxing champion Hasim Rahman to give Lennox Lewis a rematch or not fight anyone for 18 months.

Cedarbaum also heard the 1992 appeal of Jean Harris, the headmistress convicted of murdering Dr. Herman Tarnowner of "Scarsdale Diet" fame. Defense lawyers argued that Harris deserved a new trial because her lawyer at the time failed to use evidence she was "seriously clinically depressed."

The judge ruled that a verdict could not be overturned simply because "competent counsel makes what is even a wrong decision."

By Tom Hays