Jury selection began this morning in the Martha Stewart trial. It may take a week to pick the jury and the selection process is taking place behind closed doors.

The trial is to determine whether Stewart, 62, is a criminal who lied to the government about unloading stock based on an inside tip about a well-placed friend - or simply a shrewd investor who saved money with a smart bet on the market.

It grew from a 2001 stock sale in which the government estimates Stewart saved about $51,000 - a tiny sum compared with her multimillion-dollar media empire. The government says Stewart saved the money by selling stock in ImClone Systems on Dec. 27, 2001 - just before a negative government report about a highly touted ImClone cancer drug sent the stock plummeting.

Stewart says she sold because she and Bacanovic, her Merrill Lynch & Co. broker, had a pre-existing agreement to sell when the stock fell to $60. But the government says she was tipped that ImClone founder Sam Waksal - a longtime friend of Stewart's who once dated her daughter - was trying to unload his shares.

The most ridiculous charge against Martha (meaning trumped up or legally manufactured) is also the most serious--that of securities fraud. The basis for the charge is Martha's public statement that in 2002 that she is innocent of the charges. The Government says she made that statement to deceive her stockholders.

The defense has characterized the charge as an unprecedented infringement on a defendant's First Amendment rights, and even the judge in the case called the charge "novel." But prosecutors say Stewart went further than simply predicting she would be exonerated, giving a "forceful, detailed and false explanation for her sale of ImClone."

What is the most damaging evidence likely to be?