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Prison term of lawyer (Lynne Stewart) in terrorism case upheld
Source: Reuters
Prison term of lawyer in terrorism case upheld
By Basil Katz
NEW YORK | Thu Jun 28, 2012 4:11pm EDT
(Reuters) - Outspoken New York criminal defense attorney Lynne Stewart, now disbarred and incarcerated, lost a bid to reverse her 10-year prison sentence for helping a terrorism suspect smuggle messages to his followers from prison.
In a written opinion on Thursday, three judges at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York expressed little sympathy for 72-year-old Stewart, who has struggled with breast cancer and whose supporters had argued the prison term amounted to a death sentence.
Stewart "has persisted in exhibiting what seems to be a stark inability to understand the seriousness of her crimes, the breadth and depth of the danger in which they placed the lives and safety of unknown innocents, and the extent to which they constituted an abuse of her trust and privilege as a member of the bar," the 51-page opinion said.
Stewart, a long time human rights lawyer, was convicted by a Manhattan federal jury in July 2005 of helping her client, a blind Egyptian cleric who was a terrorism suspect, smuggle messages out of prison, a violation of the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) governing his confinement. In 2006, she was sentenced to 28 months in prison.
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By Basil Katz
NEW YORK | Thu Jun 28, 2012 4:11pm EDT
(Reuters) - Outspoken New York criminal defense attorney Lynne Stewart, now disbarred and incarcerated, lost a bid to reverse her 10-year prison sentence for helping a terrorism suspect smuggle messages to his followers from prison.
In a written opinion on Thursday, three judges at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York expressed little sympathy for 72-year-old Stewart, who has struggled with breast cancer and whose supporters had argued the prison term amounted to a death sentence.
Stewart "has persisted in exhibiting what seems to be a stark inability to understand the seriousness of her crimes, the breadth and depth of the danger in which they placed the lives and safety of unknown innocents, and the extent to which they constituted an abuse of her trust and privilege as a member of the bar," the 51-page opinion said.
Stewart, a long time human rights lawyer, was convicted by a Manhattan federal jury in July 2005 of helping her client, a blind Egyptian cleric who was a terrorism suspect, smuggle messages out of prison, a violation of the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) governing his confinement. In 2006, she was sentenced to 28 months in prison.
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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/28/us-usa-lawyer-appeal-idUSBRE85R1JQ20120628
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