The People’s Lawyer, Political Prisoner Lynne Stewart: An interview wit’ her daughter, Brenna Stewart
San Francisco BayView Newspaper
Society of Law Teachers (SALT) letter in support of Lynne Stewart:
Updating Lynne Stewart’s “Love Struggle:” Part II
by Stephen Lendman
Published 6/22/10
Human rights attorney Stewart spent her career observing the American Bar Association’s Model Rules, saying all lawyers must:
devote professional time and resources and use civil influence to ensure equal access to our system of justice for all those who because of economic or social barriers cannot afford or secure adequate legal counsel.
Also to practice law ethically, morally and responsibly to assure everyone gets due process and judicial fairness, what the poor, underprivileged, society’s unwanted rarely ever are afforded unless lucky enough to have an advocate like her. What failed her after being bogusly indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and jailed, awaiting final sentencing in July, perhaps later for reasons of health. More on that below.
Stewart (prison number 53504-054) is at:
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, NY 10007
Supporters can write her there and send letters about her resentencing to:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
350 Broadway
Suite 700
New York, NY 10007
Address them (but don’t send directly) to:
Honorable John G. Koeltl
United States District Judge
Southern District of New York
500 Pearl Street
New York, NY 10007
Stewart’s defense committee will send them to Judge Koeltl, at issue being not to lengthen her 28 month sentence, the Justice Department wanting 30 years, despite her innocence on all charges and lifetime of dedicated service, well known to prosecutors and the judiciary, besides her legion of supporters, this writer proudly among them.
On June 16, posted on lynnestewart.org, the web site maintained for her, husband Ralph Poynter noted the “the deep contradictions of the system,” calling it “an obscenity and an affront to fundamental fairness,” and a threat to all lawyers who defend unpopular clients too vigorously, ones prosecutors target to convict, even those clearly innocent.
“Lynne Stewart deserves justice….equal justice under law,” said Poynter, what everyone deserves but too few get in America’s unjust system, sparing criminal insiders, not easy poor, underprivileged targets, putting a lie to the rule of law and a government of, by and for the people, what it never was and isn’t today under a bipartisan criminal class, headed by a president protecting privilege from beneficial social change.
Targeting A Defender of Human Rights and Judicial Fairness
For issuing a legitimate press release on behalf of her client, Lynne was bogusly charged with:
* “conspiring to defraud the United States;
* conspiring to provide and conceal material support to terrorist activity;
* providing and concealing material support to terrorist activity; and
* two counts of making false statement.”
On February 10, 2005, she was convicted, appealed, remained free on bond, then ordered incarcerated on November 19, 2009, awaiting resentencing. A full account of her case can be accessed through the following links, the lower one with a section on the Appeals Court ruling:
* Lynne Stewart’s Long Struggle for Justice
* Updating Lynne Stewart’s “Love Struggle”
Lynne’s Health
Jeff Mackler, Stewart Defense Committee West Coast Coordinator, updated her condition, explaining that a regularly scheduled breast cancer check revealed a spot on her liver.
She wanted a biopsy done by her own doctor at her own hospital, (Roosevelt Hospital, New York). Instead it was performed at “a notoriously inferior facility,” taking a week compared to Roosevelt’s same day, more reliable results.
Worse still, except during examination and procedure, she was painfully shackled and handcuffed by order of Obama administration prosecutors, “making rest and sleep virtually impossible.”
Back in MCC prison, her attorneys filed for resentencing postponement, citing health concerns that will impede her ability to participate in her own defense, what she’s able, eager and legally allowed to do.
New York Law Journal on Lynne’s Resentencing
On June 16, Law.com posted Mark Hamblett’s update (Subscription Required), covering DOJ and defense lawyers’ resentencing positions, explained in detailed materials filed.
In their 155-page memorandum, Southern District Assistant US Attorneys Andrew S. Dember and Michael D. Maimin’s accused Stewart of perjuring herself several times, notably when she said a “bubble” protected her attorney status in issuing a press release on her client, what defense counsels routinely do with no recriminations, what perhaps for the time ever, Bush administration prosecutors used against Lynne bogusly and unjustly, Obama administration ones proving just as ruthless.
According to the DOJ memorandum:
“The evidence at trial irrefutably proved that Stewart knew that she was committing perjury by offering such testimony,” arguing for terrorism enhancement to dramatically increase her sentence to the 30 year statutory maximum, or at least far more than 28 months, when, in fact, one day is too much.
In response, defense lawyers Elizabeth M. Fink and Jill R. Shellow called Judge Koeltl’s original sentence “reasonable and just,” despite Stewart’s innocence of all charges – judicial fairness warranting a full exoneration, readmitting her to the bar, and providing compensation for her bogus prosecution and false imprisonment.
Fink and Shellow addressed only her resentencing, calling its lengthening “dramatically unreasonable… overstat(ing) the seriousness” of prosecution charges.
“Moreover, this court’s determination to grant a variance from the guideline sentence based in part on the unreasonable effect of the terrorism enhancement as applied to Stewart was reasonable and proper, and is an approach that has been approved by other courts.”
Lynne Stewart and the Guantanamo Lawyers: Same Fact Patterns, Same Opponent, Different Endings?
By Ralph Poynter
In the Spring of 2002, Lynne Stewart was arrested by the FBI, at her home in Brooklyn, for materially aiding terrorism by virtue of making a public press release to Reuters on behalf of her client, Sheik Abdel Omar Rahman of Egypt. This was done after she had signed a Special Administrative Measure issued by the Bureau of Prisons not permitting her to communicate with the media, on his behalf.
In 2006, a number of attorneys appointed and working pro bono for detainees at Guantanamo were discovered to be acting in a manner that disobeyed a Federal Judge’s protective court order. The adversary in both cases was the United States Department of Justice. The results in each case were very different.
In March of 2010, a right wing group “Keep America Safe” led by Lynn Cheyney, hoping to dilute Guantanamo representation and impugn the reputations and careers of the volunteer lawyers, launched a campaign. Initially they attacked the right of the detainees to be represented at all. This was met with a massive denouncement by Press, other media, Civil rights organizations ,and rightly so, as being a threat to the Constitution and particularly the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
A second attack on the Gitmo lawyers was made in the Wall Street Journal of March 16. This has been totally ignored in the media and by civil and human rights groups. This latter revelation about the violations, by these lawyers, of the Judge’s protective orders and was revealed via litigation and the Freedom of Information Act. These pro bono lawyers serving clients assigned to them at Gitmo used privileged attorney client mail to send banned materials. They carried in news report of US failures in Afghanistan and Iraq . One lawyer drew a map of the prison. Another delivered lists to his client of all the suspects held there. They placed on the internet a facsimile of the badges worn by the Guards. Some lawyers “provided news outlets with ‘interviews’ of their clients using questions provided in advance by the news organizations.” When a partner at one of the large Wall Street law firms sent in multiple copies of an Amnesty International brochure, which her client was to distribute to other prisoners, she was relieved from her representation and barred by the Military Commander from visiting her client.
This case is significant to interpret not because of the right wing line to punish these lawyers and manipulate their corporate clients to stop patronizing such “wayward” firms. Instead it is significant because, Lynne Stewart, a left wing progressive lawyer who had dedicated her thirty year career to defending the poor, the despised, the political prisoner and those ensnared by reason of race, gender, ethnicity, religion , who was dealt with by the same Department of Justice, in such a draconian fashion, confirms our deepest suspicions that she was targeted for prosecution and punishment because of who she is and who she represented so ably and not because of any misdeed.
Let me be very clear, I am not saying that the Gitmo lawyers acted in any “criminal” manner. The great tradition of the defense bar is to be able to make crucial decisions for and with the client without interference by the adversary Government.
I believe that they were acting as zealous attorneys trying to establish rapport and trust with their clients. That said, the moment the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice tried to remove Julia Tarver Mason from her client, the playing field tilted. Ms Tarver Mason was not led out of her home in handcuffs to the full glare of publicity. There was no press conference. The Attorney General did not go on the David Letterman show to gloat about the latest strike in the War on Terror, the purge of the Gitmo lawyer…NO.
Instead an “armada” of corporate lawyers went to Court against the Government. They, in the terms of the litigation trade, papered the US District Courthouse in Washington D.C. They brought to bear the full force of their Money and Power– derived from the corporate world–and in 2006 “settled” the case with the government, restoring their clients to Guantanamo without any punishment at all, not to say any Indictment. Lynne Stewart, without corporate connections and coming from a working class background, was tried and convicted for issuing, on behalf of her client, a public press release to Reuters. There was no injury, no harm, no attacks, no deaths.
Yet that same Department of Justice that dealt so favorably and capitulated to the Gitmo corporate lawyers, wants to sentence Lynne Stewart to thirty (30) YEARS in prison. It is the equivalent of asking for a death sentence since she is 70 years old.
This vast disparity in treatment between Lynne and the Gitmo lawyers reveals the deep contradictions of the system — those who derive power from rich and potent corporations, those whose day to day work maintains and increases that power–are treated differently. Is it because the Corporate Power is intertwined with Government Power???
Lynne Stewart deserves Justice… equal justice under law. Her present sentence of 28 months incarceration (she is in Federal Prison) should at least be maintained, if not made equal to the punishment that was meted out to the Gitmo lawyers. The thirty year sentence, assiduously pursued by DOJ under both Bush and Obama, is an obscenity and an affront to fundamental fairness. They wanted to make her career and dedication to individual clients, a warning, to the defense bar that the Government can arrest any lawyer on any pretext. The sharp contrasts between the cases of Lynne and the Gitmo lawyers just confirm that she is getting a raw deal–one that should be protested actively, visibly and with the full force of our righteous resistance.
Lynne Stewart will be re sentenced sometime in July, in NYC.
Ralph.Poynter@yahoo.com
Lynne wants everyone to check out this article below:
UPDATE:
The new sentencing date for Lynne Stewart is now July 15th at 2:30 p.m. Please check back as this date could change.
