Civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart will be sentenced today giving material support to terrorists, defrauding the government and making false statements becaise she failed abide by special rules the government imposed on her client,radical Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, to prevent him from communicating with his followers. She faces 30 years in prison for passing a press release to Reuters on behalf of her client. She is a wife and a 67 year old grandmother of 13. She has breast cancer. She serves mostly low-income and minority clients and is known to be quite liberal in her views. She claims that she was trying to help her client and that she was naïve about the changes to rules after 9/11. She has since repented and recognized her mistake. Her right to practice law has been stripped.
The case was originally dismissed by the US district court, but was reissued by then US Attorney General Ashcroft, who announced a new indictment of her personally. Even Ashcroft had to admit that her press release had no repercussions.
Stewart claims that she was simply providing assistance to her imprisoned client. One concern that she has is that if sentenced to 30 years in prison, she will subjected to terrorism laws that would forbid any form of communication with her family or others. It is a prime case where a US citizen, white educated, “like us” could be treated no differently than Abdel Rahman was. And in a twisted irony, it is a civil rights attorney. I don’t think such a punishment fits the crime.
I worry that this will place defenders under the same risk that journalists now face, imprisonment for doing their job. The whole thing reeks to me. What do the Citizen’s think?
Monday, October 16, 2006
Free Lynne
Posted by USWest at 9:52 AM
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6 comments:
The fact that her press release had no repercussions is what makes it crazy to sentence her to 30 years in prison. As a lawyer, I don't think her "naive" defense will work too well - nor does she - but that's not the issue.
This is just pure intimidation of anyone who would volunteer to protect the constitution. What can we do?
// posted by LTG
LTG,
I'm curious what you think an appropriate sanction would be given that the "naive" defense doesn't hold legal water?
I agree that she should have known better. I strongly suspect she knew she wasn't supposed to do this but was trying to play games with the media by releasing the statement just as one would in a more routine case. I think she acted irresponsibly.
I'm also not sure we should let her off so easily. We don't know there weren't reprecusions from her forwarding the statement. We do know that she violated a law? court order? (LTG can you clarify?)
I think she should get some sort of serious sanction (big fine and/or short prison term) but 30 years sounds totally excessive unless we know her actions led to someone's death or something.
// posted by RBR
Generally, I would think disbarment and a fine would suffice. After all, disbarment totally prevents any future wrongdoing of this kind, and is a severe deterrent to any lawyer. I don't know exactly what she violated, but it wasn't the penal code.
// posted by LTG
She got 28 months (But will probably not serve the full time, right LTG?). I think that's in the range of what reasonable people would expect but might disagree about. If she only actually served a few months of that I'd think that fair.
Certainly the prosecution's demand of 30 years was outlandish.
// posted by RBR
Shame on the prosecution for asking for 30 years! The judge said (as I did) that since she's been disbarred there was zero chance of recidivism, and she had long performed a "service to the nation" in taking such cases. With luck, the sentence will be partly suspsended as well.
// posted by LTG
I agree with LTG that disbarment was enough. She is, after all 67. I will point out that the Judge could give 28 months because the US Supreme Court struck down mandatory minimums. Otherwise, the Court would have not had such discretion.
In rereading my post, I saw something that could be misinterpreted, and I want to clear that up. I wrote: “It is a prime case where a US citizen, white educated, “like us” could be treated no differently than Abdel Rahman was.” This can be understood that I think Arabs or non-whites should be treated differently than White, U.S. citizens. That is not at all what I meant.
I have been saying that we should beware of how we treat non-citizens because the same rules can be turned on us citizens. And this is simply an example of that. Rahman was not a US citizen. Stewart is.
// posted by USwest
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