----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
sean sullivan wrote:
>Lawyer Is Convicted of Aiding Terrorists
-Damn, ever feel like the walls are closing in?
I think there were serious problems with this trial-- the use of tapes from confidential lawyer conversations with clients being a primary examples -- but Stewart had a full trial, the best lawyers on her defense, and a bluer-than-blue jury in New York City. The jury deliberated for almost two weeks, so there was no rush to judgement. Hopefully, she will be able to contest the use of a chunk of the evidence used in her trial on appeal and force a new trial, but the point is that she will have an appeal.
Contrast this with detainees who can't talk to their lawyers, prisoners being sent to other countries like Egypt for proxy torture (see this week's NEW YORKER), and immigrants deported without trial. Those are the real civil liberties crises this country is facing.
Yes, the government wants to get political lawyers like Lynne Stewart, but when Stewart violated a promise that in exchange for access to convicted terrorists, she wouldn't publicly disclose any message the Sheik to the public, she helped justify the refusal by the government to give suspected terrorists the right to counsel. If Stewart had disclosed that her client was being tortured or his rights were being violated, that would have been appropriate, but she chose to convey exactly the kind of information -- a message to his followers -- that the restriction was supposed to prevent and which had nothing to do with the Sheiks own legal case.
There are lawyers fighting to get the right of counsel for a range of people around the country and the world. Stewart's actions are going to be Exhibit A for the government in demonstrating why lawyers can't be trusted with that access.
Nathan Newman