Sentence Today for Lawyer Convicted in Terror Case - NYT

[spindrifter]

By JULIA PRESTON
Published: October 16, 2006
That would be a life sentence for Ms. Stewart, who turned 67 last week. Long an abrasive advocate of anti-government causes, these days she is not defiant. She is mournful about what she said were her failures as a lawyer.

Her dread of prison deepened unexpectedly, Ms. Stewart said, during the long period after a jury found her guilty on Feb. 10, 2005, of providing material aid to terrorism. She has recently recovered from breast cancer, but fears it will return in prison.

Lynne F. Stewart, the firebrand lawyer known for defending unsavory criminals, now faces the possibility of living out her life like many of them, in maximum-security lockdown in a federal prison.

Today, 20 months after she was convicted on terror charges, Ms. Stewart and two co-defendants who were convicted of conspiring with her will be sentenced in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Prosecutors, arguing that Ms. Stewart repeatedly flouted the law to aid the violent designs of an imprisoned terrorist client, have asked Judge John G. Koeltl to condemn her to 30 years in prison.

<more>

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/nyregion/16stewart.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[MADem]

1. What was she thinking?

Ms. Stewart still denies that she acted to further any violent goals of the sheik, a blind Islamic cleric from Egypt who is serving a life sentence for a thwarted 1993 plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Whatever the sentence, her lawyers have said they will appeal the case.

But in documents they submitted to persuade Judge Koeltl to be lenient and give her no prison time, Ms. Stewart is newly remorseful about “ill-advised” moves on behalf of her client.

“I still believe it was justifiable — but perhaps not in the way that I did it,” Ms. Stewart said in a sober interview in a borrowed room in the Manhattan offices where she used to practice law. She was speaking of her actions in June 2000 to violate strict prison rules, known as special administrative measures, by publicizing a message from the sheik to his militant followers in Egypt.... These days, Ms. Stewart says, what stings is that she agrees with some of prosecutors’ claims about her faulty legal work.

In her trial testimony, she said she believed that she could stretch the prison rules because she regarded them as unconstitutional. But the argument was weak because, as prosecutors noted, she never made a formal legal challenge.

[Eric J in MN]

4. It's the job of a lawyer to speak on behalf of her clients.

This should have been handled by the judge giving her a warning, not by prosecuting her.

[MADem]

6. I don't think she should get life, but she screwed up big time

Speaking on behalf of your client is one thing, passing info to a bunch of terrorists is another.

Additionally, she signed an agreement, she broke the agreement. She didn't formally or informally protest the constitutionality of the restraints she was working under. What, they're supposed to know she's annoyed and disagrees, how, by telepathy?

She should do some time and permanently lose her law license. A thirty year sentence is excessive, though.

I feel bad for that translator. He's the one getting shafted. They're putting the onus of the lawyer's agreement that she signed on him, and he signed no such agreement.

[Eric J in MN]

8. A slip up by saying too much when speaking for her client...

...should not be punished with prison time.

[MADem]

9. No, that's not what got her in trouble--offering to pass messages to

his cohorts in Egypt is what caused her woes. And she now, facing a long sentence, has admitted that she agrees with the prosecution's assessment of her conduct. In essence, she signed an agreement, and she knowingly broke it. She thought it wasn't constitutional but she didn't bring that up with the judge, she simply flouted the documents she signed. That's incredibly unprofessional at a minimum; when you consider that her client was a terrorist who didn't wish the government of the US well, she was also putting others at risk. Like I said, I don't think she should have an onerous sentence, but she should do time and lose that law license. Her defense of her client stunk--she ended up unable to defend herself as well.

[The Stranger]

11. According to the NY Times article below, none of that happened.

The Government is intruding into the most timeless, sacred and cherished privileges known to the law, meanwhile the Government stands before (or over) the court with, recently, an unbroken record of individual civil rights and civil liberties violations, including a concentration camp being run in Cuba, while none of the dangers supposedly created (the ever-present evil danger supposedly threatening everyone at every moment of time) have been shown to exist.

[MADem]

13. From the originally cited article

“I still believe it was justifiable — but perhaps not in the way that I did it,” Ms. Stewart said in a sober interview in a borrowed room in the Manhattan offices where she used to practice law. She was speaking of her actions in June 2000 to violate strict prison rules, known as special administrative measures, by publicizing a message from the sheik to his militant followers in Egypt.

The government’s call for a 30-year sentence jolted her, she said, into deeper self-criticism. ...There was never any question during the eight-month trial that Ms. Stewart had broken the rules by releasing the sheik’s statement, which said he no longer supported a cease-fire by his followers in Egypt. Another defendant, Ahmed Abdel Sattar, 47, a Staten Island postal worker, was convicted of negotiating with the militants by telephone to promote an end to the cease-fire.
...These days, Ms. Stewart says, what stings is that she agrees with some of prosecutors’ claims about her faulty legal work.

In her trial testimony, she said she believed that she could stretch the prison rules because she regarded them as unconstitutional. But the argument was weak because, as prosecutors noted, she never made a formal legal challenge.

She said that she completely misjudged how prosecutors viewed the sheik and the leeway she could take in defending him, as terrorism became an increasing threat to the United States. “To me, the sheik was part of the demonized other,” she said, “part of a continuum” with other violent radicals she had defended more successfully, including members of the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers.....There was little sympathy for Ms. Stewart among mainstream lawyers during the trial. But more than 400 letters she submitted to Judge Koeltl about her sentence include many from law professors and criminal defense lawyers who said that her actions never caused actual harm and warned of a chilling effect on lawyers who defend terrorists if she receives a long sentence. ...

[The Stranger]

17. You seem to really want to attack this woman, who has an unbroken

record of defending Progressive causes and those accused whom no one else would want to defend. And relentlessly attacking her seems to be intended (at least from the media circus going on) to further ostracize her and create a chilling effect preventing lawyers from representing those like the ones she represented, as an arm or mouthpiece of an over-reaching Government.

And this is really important, so pay attention. It doesn't matter what she says now (or what you quote and underline), now that the Government has prosecuted her for attorney-client communications. What matters is that the Government has continually attacked civil rights and civil liberties, and now seeks to undermine the greatest protection individuals have against the State, the right to counsel. Historically, these are the actions of totalitarian states.

[MADem]

21. I don't 'seem' to want to do anything. I'm dealing with the simple facts

of the case. However it is plain what you're doing. You're behaving as a blind advocate and ignoring her misdeeds and her flouting of the law. It's not "cool" for lawyers to flout the law, IMO. You're also trying to defend her by rather childishly smearing me, accusing me of being on a vendetta of sorts, in essence attacking my character, using smarmy ('pay attention') language, and even, downthread, tossing RACE into the mix.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself. That's not how an intelligent person wins an argument.

And sorry, and please, 'do' pay attention here, in the context of this argument, what matters is that SHE violated her SAMS affirmation, which she as a lawyer had a DUTY to uphold or to seek redress from via the courts.

All that other stuff about civil rights and liberties that you have dramatically bolded and tossed into the pot to try to rescue your failed premise are certainly important issues, but they have absolutely nothing to do with the case of Atty. Stewart and her personal and deliberate gross misconduct while a member of the bar. You might as well toss in an argument about the importance of clean air and water, for all it has to do with this case.

I invite your attention to her letter to the judge, linked downthread.

[The Stranger]

26. So now it is all about you?

No lawyer worth their weight in dogshit would sit idly by while the government prosecutes criminal defense attorneys as terrorists.

But this is par for the course with an Administration that has utterly fucking gutted the Constitution. It is one more hack against the protections afforded individuals. It is one more action that is pulled straight from the book of totalitarian states.

Violating a SAMS affirmation is not a terrorist act. Let's review that now. Violating a SAMS affirmation is not a terrorist act.

To attack the one who is being made the patsy by the Government is irresponsible.

[MADem]

28. Only when you make it so. You're the one casting aspersions on me

I was endeavoring to stick to the simple issues. What the lawyer did, and what her responsibilities to her profession are. She first, ignored the SAMs, and second, didn't follow procedure to protest if she didn't like it. She thought she was somehow ABOVE the law. She admits that. She said she was wrong. That's not being a 'patsy'-- that's called 'taking responsibility.' And it helped her at the end of the day. She asked for mercy. and got it--she'll be out in two years. She smiled at her sentencing, she got off light--and she KNOWS it.

But hey, don't let the FACTS get in the way of your curious outrage.

A lawyer that sloppy or possessed of either tunnel vision or abject stupidity shouldn't be practicing law. Patsy, shmatsy--she's a lousy lawyer.

[Eric J in MN]

12. She didn't pass messages in the sense of giving secret...

...slips of paper to terrorists in Egypt.

She made a statment during a press conference which she shouldn't have, that the cleric considers the cease-fire over.

[MADem]

14. Yes she was. She was conveying information from a terrorist to his

followers: . ...There was never any question during the eight-month trial that Ms. Stewart had broken the rules by releasing the sheik’s statement, which said he no longer supported a cease-fire by his followers in Egypt. Another defendant, Ahmed Abdel Sattar, 47, a Staten Island postal worker, was convicted of negotiating with the militants by telephone to promote an end to the cease-fire.

For all she knew that could have been a prearranged code that meant something completely different than what it seemed--after all, "Climb Mount Fujiyama" actually meant "Let's bomb Pearl Harbor!"

She violated her own profession's code. She signed a statement agreeing not to do what she did. Now she regrets her actions.

As I've said, the maximum sentence is too harsh, but she needs to do a little time and lose her law license.

[The Stranger]

10. The Government needs to stay out of attorney-client communications.

Prosecuting attorneys easily becomes a campaign to create a chilling effect on and prevent attorneys from zealously representing people accused of crimes.

[MADem]

15. Well, most lawyers agree with my take on it, as the article noted

If she didn't like the rule, she should have challenged it, not flouted it. She'd have room to gripe if she'd followed procedure and challenged the court's oversight on constitutional grounds. But instead, she just unwisely and unprofessionally ignored it, and it's going to cost her.

[The Stranger]

16. I'm sure "most lawyers" supported the Dred Scott decision at the time.

And you don't imprison someone for "flouting procedure." Void rules are not always followed, especially when they are unethical. That would actually THE PROFESSIONAL, rather than the "unprofessional," thing to do.

[MADem]

19. I suggest you do two things. Read the article, and read the lawyer's

letter to the judge, which you will find elsewhere on the web. You clearly have not read the full article, else you would understand that the lawyer herself ADMITS her errors--see, one of the lawyers who agrees with me and "most lawyers" that this woman screwed up horribly is the woman HERSELF. Capisce? Here, read her letter, word for word, if you don't want to take my word for it: http://www.lynnestewart.org/Stewart%20Letter%20(Ex%201)%20scanned.pdf

In her letter, she ADMITS that she made a huge mistake, she admits that she INTENTIONALLY violated her SAMS affirmation, she ADMITS that she was 'used' by her client, she acknowledges that she was naive, had lapses of judgment, and that she was careless. She acknowledges in her letter to the judge that her fuckup could bring down a world of hurt on other attorneys. She asks for MERCY.

So spare me the histronics. That is not comparable at all to "Dred Scott" and shame on you for dramatically trying to insert a race card into your losing argument. That's beyond low.

[The Stranger]

27. You seem to suffer from the delusion that an admission equals guilt.

Especially in times like these, when attorneys are charged as terrorists, criminal defendants are incarcerated for years without hearing, trial or due process, and where the government is running a fucking concentration camp and legalizing torture, her admission doesn't amount to a pile of dogshit.

It doesn't matter what she admits or doesn't admit now. THE GOVERNMENT IS STILL IN THE WRONG HERE. What she says now doesn't change that. But, again, you seem so hopelessly focused on this woman -- who, by the way has a tireless record of standing up for Progressive and Left Wing causes (why am I always finding Progressives attacked on this, a Progressive web site?) -- that you miss the real problem here, and it is with the acts that become a totalitarian state.

[MADem]

29. Bwahahahahahahaaaaaa ...... sorry, you're killin' me!!!!

Please. That's not a delusion. There's delusion about, but this admission equalled guilt. Plain and simple. Read her letter, all nine pages of it.

Stop trying to strawman the shit out of your weak and pathetic argument by wandering far afield and accusing me (yet again) of vendettas (this time around I'm "hopelessly focused." Try a new trick, pony--and perhaps look in the mirror when you start tossing around those phrases).

This is NOT about people being locked up without trials (she got one, remember? In open court, too). This is not about concentration camps or legal torture, any more than it is about clean air, fuel economy, the winner of the World Series, or any other topic in the newspaper. This is about a lawyer who violated her SAMs and got caught doing it. Plain and simple.

This is NOT about how swell this lady is with her "progressive and leftwing" causes(how many times are you going to keep repeating that, like it matters? What, if she were a LIBERTARIAN or rightwing lawyer, would she be LESS DESERVING of justice? Gee, that's not terribly "progressive" of you, is it?).

And just because this a "progressive" web site, that doesn't mean that we drink your poorly made koolaid and leave our intellects at the door.

If anyone is 'missing the real problem here,' it's you.

She signed a document. Got that?

The document constrained what she could do. Her signature meant she AGREED to what the document said. As a lawyer, she knows full well what her signature on that document meant. She had to take classes on the subject to get out of law school.

Still following me?

She then broke the provisions of the document she signed, and told a bunch of radical nuts in Egypt that her client wanted them to BREAK a cease fire via a press conference.

But more importantly, here's what she did NOT do:

==She didn't file a complaint with the judge about the contents of the document she signed.

==She didn't challenge the constitutionality of the document.

==She didn't refuse to sign the document.

==She didn't say squat to the media about her perception about the unfairness of the document, either.

The government is not in the wrong here. She's in the wrong. She had alternative methods to redress what she felt was unlawful constraint, and because she was either stupid, hubris-filled, or simply a shitty lawyer, she didn't take those avenues. Instead, she plowed ahead, violated her agreement, behaved in a fashion unbefitting a member of the bar, aided and abetted (knowingly or unknowingly is irrelevant, here, though you might not like that) and got slapped back for it.

You give the left a very bad name when you make lame arguments that throw torture and concentration camps into this simple case of a lawyer failing to live up to an agreement she made with the government--people might think the rest of us are equally challenged in the logic department. Leave your torture and camps and 'progressive' labels and all your unrelated arguments at the door, they've nothing to do with this case.

She got precisely what she deserved, and her sentence was completely appropriate. And her remorseful, mea culpa letter no doubt helped shave the thing down to less than three years.

[seriousstan]

2. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[Eric J in MN]

5. A lawyer who defends people no one else wants to isn't rubbish.

Lawyers like that are needed for our system of justice to work.

[struggle4progress]

3. Lynne Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All (February 10, 2005)

By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN

... The New York Times writes today about Stewart's conviction: "The government never showed that any violence ever resulted from Mr. Sattar's calls or from any action by Ms. Stewart or Mr. Yousry; there were no victims in the case. The Islamic Group never cancelled the cease-fire, which remains in effect to this day. The defendants were never accused of plotting any terrorism in the United States. The evidence showed that Ms. Stewart had had nothing to do with writing or issuing the fatwa."

AND: "Ultimately the jury appeared to have been persuaded by the fact that Ms. Stewart, a lawyer, had clearly violated the legal letter of the prison rules."

Violated the legal letter of prison rules? A violation of an administrative measure is not a crime. Do you sentence an attorney to twenty years in jail for not following a regulation?

Surely we all know how magic tricks work. It is sleight-of-hand ...

http://www.counterpunch.org/bergen02112005.html

[madmusic]

7. violation of an administrative measure

You would be surprised if you Google this. Administrative regulations are now a lot like penal codes with a minor difference: since they are not criminal trials in the technical sense, no need for all that wishy-washy Bill of Rights stuff that gets in the way of criminal prosecutions. There are some protections, but far less.

This case is probably a message to all defense lawyers: don't jump too quickly to defend the very unpopular.

EDIT: for one example, try this: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Administrative+regulations+%22ex+post+facto%22&btnG=Search

[aikoaiko]

18. It sounds like she was trying to push boundaries

Which of course has been her modus operandi for decades -- this time there may be serious consequences. Everything I've read makes me think she knew what she was doing, but she didn't expect to be held accountable to the degree of 30 years prison time.

While I admire her for defending terrorists and other politically unappealing clients, it was very clear that this type of communication from the terrorist was just the type that was to be prevented by the rules.

[MADem]

20. See her letter, I provided a link in post 19. She admits her mistakes

fully, claims naivete, lapse of judgment, and carelessness, and throws herself on the mercy of the court.

[pberq]

22. Stewart: "if you only read the NYT, you may get the wrong impression"

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/16/143257

<snip>
LYNNE STEWART: Yes. You know, the government has put in what my dear friend Bill Kunstler used to call “weasel words,” words that don’t state the exact facts but really pull a kind of reaction. So they use words like “smuggled out messages.” We would visit the Sheik. He would tell us, he would dictate to us letters. He would dictate to us press releases.

The real thrust of my conviction is that I made a press release very openly to Reuters, no secret, nothing under the bra straps, and that press release called for a reconsideration, not an end to the ceasefire, but a reconsideration of a unilateral ceasefire that the Sheik's group, which he of course had not been a member of for ten years at the time he made the release, had made in Egypt. Ramsey Clark had announced his original position, which was in support of the ceasefire. Ramsey Clark never heard from the government at all. I made the press release saying, “I think you should reconsider this ceasefire,” and a year-and-a-half later, I was indicted.

AMY GOODMAN: You have written a letter to the judge. Explain this letter.

LYNNE STEWART: Yes. I’m afraid that if you only read the New York Times, you may get the wrong impression. It’s not a craven, begging letter. I am still very sure of my principled stand in this whole matter, that everything I did, I did as a lawyer, that I never intended to aid my client's cause. I intended to aid this man, this man who was in terrible isolation.

[MADem]

23. From the same cite:

Last month, Stewart wrote a personal letter to the court and acknowledged for the first time that she knowingly violated prison rules and was careless, overemotional and politically naive in her representation of her client... She has asked for leniency from the court.

As far as the court is concerned, all they are dealing with is her violation of the SAMs. The NYT 'agenda' is something else entirely. And her letter is on the web, and if admitting that she screwed up and asking for mercy from the judge isn't 'craven and begging' in the face of a thirty year sentence, I don't know what is.

All I can say is her lawyer should have kept her off that program. She's not helping her cause. If she wants to appear contrite, getting on radio and mitigating her plea letter isn't the way to do it.

She also hit NPR as well, and took great pains to distance herself from her client's goals in this interview:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6275682

Adler: In a letter to the Judge, John Koeltl, Stewart has expressed her regrets. Her goal was to improve the prison conditions of her client, she says, but she was naive not to realize that what might have been considered legitimate before Sept. 11 would now be interpreted as criminal. "At the time I didn't see this," she wrote. "I see and understand it now." She says she should have fought the constitutionality of the prison regulations in court. She now says she wants Judge Koeltl to see.


Stewart: My flaws, my weaknesses, my tendency to let my heart run ahead of my head.


Adler: And most of all she wants to set the record straight to dispel the notion that…


Stewart: If you are a left-winger, as I am -- and maybe a radical left-winger as I am always called -- that that somehow feeds into an Islamic kind of an agenda, the two couldn't be further apart. We are inclusive people, they are exclusive people, they want a theocracy.

As I have said elsewhere, I don't think she merits the max sentence of 30 years, but she should do a little time and lose her law license.

[msanthrope]

24. Excellet posting MaDem--and I agree with you...

Ms. Stewart deserves punishment, but not the max sentence. A bit of time, loss of license....

[MADem]

25. She got 28 months, just announced, a small slap, but it made the point

Civil Rights Lawyer Sentenced to 28 Months


NEW YORK -- Civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart was sentenced this afternoon to 28 months in prison on a terrorism charge for helping an Egyptian sheik communicate with his followers on the outside.

The 67-year-old Stewart, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, smiled as the judge announced his decision to send her to prison for less than two-and-a-half years. She had faced up to 30 years in prison.

Stewart's defense lawyer, Elizabeth Fink told the judge just before the sentence was pronounced: "If you send her to prison, she's going to die. It's as simple as that.''

Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to terrorists. She had released a statement by Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind sheik sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted in plots to blow up five New York landmarks and assassinate Egypt's president.

Prosecutors have called the case a major victory in the war on terrorism. They said Stewart and other defendants carried messages between the sheik and senior members of an Egyptian-based terrorist organization. Prosecutors say that helped spread Abdel-Rahman's call to kill those who did not subscribe to his extremist interpretation of Islamic law....


Edit to add link: http://1010wins.com/pages/109003.php?contentType=4&contentId=224045