[lbo-talk] Lynne Stewart speaks

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Tue Feb 22 12:39:04 PST 2005


----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>>
>This wasn't a railroading trial, so at some point you
>are at complete war with democracy and the idea that one should
>respect a fair jury's deliberations.

-Jurors can be pressured into supporting the government against their -own conscience:"The anonymous juror, referred to as No. 7, could -be seen wiping -tears from her eyes as the verdict was read. And when the individual -members of the jury were asked if the verdicts as announced by the -foreman were accurate, the juror looked stricken, and twice only -mouthed the word 'yes'" -It's clear that convicting Lynne Stewart and her co-defendants -conflicted with some jurors' consciences.

That doesn't indicate pressure. It's actually expected given they were deliberating for weeks. It was obviously a hard decision and they no doubt felt that even if the law said one thing, they didn't like convicting Stewart under it. But none of this makes the jury process necessarily suspect; my point on the case is that's it's a tough call for a lot of good progressive folks, and accusing anyone who doesn't jump up in Stewart's defense as a rightwinger/Horowitz type is being dumb. It's not a good poster child case for that reason, since a lot of people will feel she did something wrong, even if the sentence may be too harsh.

Nathan Newman



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