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<font size=3>From AxisofLogic.com<br><br>
United States<br>
First They Came for Lynne Stewart ...<br>
By Marjorie Cohn<br>
Feb 15, 2005, 21:55<br><br>
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<dl>
<dd>First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--<br>
<dd>because I was not a communist;<br>
<dd>Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--<br>
<dd>because I was not a socialist;<br>
<dd>Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak
out--<br>
<dd>because I was not a trade unionist;<br>
<dd>Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--<br>
<dd>because I was not a Jew;<br>
<dd>Then they came for me--<br>
<dd>and there was no one left to speak out for me.<br><br>
<dd> -Pastor Martin Niemöller, 1945<br><br>
</i></b>
</dl><font size=3> Now they're coming for the lawyers,
and we must all speak out.<br><br>
Last Thursday, after 13 days of deliberations,
prominent New York civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart was convicted of
conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists, and defrauding the
United States government. Her 7-month trial was held in the same federal
courthouse where the Rosenbergs were tried for conspiracy to commit
espionage more than 50 years ago. Stewart faces between 35 and 45 years
in prison.<br><br>
Stewart was indicted in March 2002. The indictment was
based on governmental monitoring of conversations between Stewart and her
client, Shiek Omar Abdel Rahman, which occurred two and a half years
before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.<br><br>
Rahman is serving a life plus 65-year sentence for
conspiring to bomb several New York City landmarks and soliciting crimes
of violence against the U.S. military and Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak.<br><br>
Beginning in 1997, the Bureau of Prisons, at the
direction of the Attorney General, imposed special administrative
measures (SAMs) on Rahman, limiting his access to the mail, the media,
the telephone and visitors. <br><br>
Stewart was obliged to sign an affirmation agreeing to
be bound by the SAMs, before being allowed to see her client. She agreed
"only to be accompanied by translators for the purpose of
communicating with inmate Abdel Rahman concerning legal matters" and
not to "use my meetings, correspondence, or phone calls with Abdel
Rahman to pass messages between third parties (including, but not limited
to, the media) and Abdel Rahman." <br><br>
The government charged that Stewart allowed the Arabic
translator to read letters to Rahman regarding Islamic Group matters, and
to conduct a discussion with Rahman regarding whether Islamic Group
should continue to comply with a cease-fire in Egypt. It also alleged
that Stewart concealed those discussions from prison guards, and
announced to the media that Rahman had withdrawn his support for the
cease-fire, in violation of the SAMs. <br><br>
Stewart denied these allegations, and testified that
she believed in good faith that relaying Rahman's statement calling for
more consultation about the Egyptian cease-fire did not violate the SAMs.
She said she was trying to have Rahman transferred to Egypt to serve his
sentence by keeping him visible. Rahman is old, blind, does not speak
English, and has been kept virtually incommunicado in a federal prison in
Minnesota.<br><br>
Her good-faith belief, Stewart tesfitied, was based on
actions of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, another of Rahman's
attorneys. Clark also signed these SAMs, held press conferences, and
conveyed Rahman's statements about Egyptian politics to the press. Yet,
Clark was never prosecuted. <br><br>
Clark, who testified for Stewart at her trial, told
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, "I don't know of anything that Lynne
did that I didn't do." He said, "This case would never have
been brought except for the fear generated, and the advantage that the
Bush administration was taking of it, by the events of September 11,
2001. In ordinary times and circumstances, it would be recognized that
everything that Lynne did was exactly what an effective attorney
representing a client zealously would be obligated to do."<br><br>
At a 2002 conference, Stewart noted, "Usually if
one breaks a Bureau of Prisons edict, one is told one can't visit the
prison again, or one gets some sort of administrative slap on the wrist
of some kind. One does not usually get indicted for aiding a terrorist
organization."<br><br>
Why did the government wait so long before indicting
Lynne Stewart? According to Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the
National Lawyers Guild, Stewart was a "prime target for the Attorney
General, who needed desperately to show that the Justice Department was
actively fighting terrorism." <br><br>
When Stewart was indicted, John Ashcroft had arrested
only one person since September 11 - John Walker Lindh. "By
indicting Stewart," noted Boghosian, "Ashcroft effectively sent
the dual message that he could indict other lawyers who represented
clients with unpopular beliefs and that such clients do not deserve
defense."<br><br>
The same day Bush signed the USA Patriot Act into law,
General Ashcroft announced an interim amendment to the Bureau of Prisons
regulation, which took effect five days later, without the usual public
comment period. It permits the Department of Justice (DOJ) unlimited and
unreviewable discretion to eavesdrop on confidential attorney-client
conversations of persons in custody, with no judicial oversight and no
meaningful standards. It applies not only to convicted inmates, but to
all persons in the custody of the DOJ, including pretrial detainees,
material witnesses, and immigration detainees who have not been accused
of any crime.<br><br>
At a 2002 convention of the National Lawyers Guild,
Stewart expressed alarm at what her indictment portends for the future of
the attorney-client privilege and criminal defense. She said, "This
is about protecting the right to defend. Once the attorney-client
privilege is lost, there is no right to defend as we know it."
Speaking about the government's monitoring of her conversations with her
client, Stewart stated, "The question you should be asking is not
what I was doing in that room, but what was the government doing in that
room?"<br><br>
During the McCarthy period of the 1950s, in an effort
to eradicate the perceived threat of communism, the government engaged in
widespread illegal surveillance to threaten and silence anyone who had an
unorthodox political viewpoint. Many people were jailed, blacklisted and
lost their jobs. Thousands of lives were shattered as the FBI engaged in
"red-baiting."<br><br>
Since September 11, those who question government
policy have been, and will continue to be, branded "terrorist."
Even though "terrorism" was not an element of any of the
offenses with which Lynne Stewart was charged, and Osama bin Laden was
not part of any of the charges, the prosecution was permitted to bring
bin Laden's name into the trial.<br><br>
A written threat from the Jewish Defense Organization
was posted on the door to Stewart's home after 10 ½ days of jury
deliberations in the trial. It referred to a message purporting "to
reach out so the jurors understand what she is. And that's been
done." The message gave Stewart's home address and said she
"needs to be put out of business legally and effectively." It
threatened to "drive her out of her home and out of the state."
If this message did reach any jurors who were sitting on the fence, it
may have pushed them over to the guilty side.<br><br>
Stewart told Amy Goodman, "These SAMs said you
know, 'If you break these regulations, you may be cut off from your
client.' That was our greatest concern, that we would be cut off from the
client. The idea of prosecution never entered our minds." Stewart
continued, "I believe with my mind and heart that it was the right
thing to do."<br><br>
Lynne Stewart's indictment, and conviction, will also
chill attorneys from taking on cases of unpopular clients. "The
purpose of this prosecution," said Michael Ratner, president of the
Center for Constitutional Rights, "was to send a message to lawyers
who represent alleged terrorists that it's dangerous to do
so."<br><br>
Stewart's attorney, Michael Tigar, does not blame the
jury for this injustice. "We have all in our lifetimes seen
well-meaning juries get caught up in the media-dominated government
rhetoric of their time, based mostly on fear," Tigar said after the
verdicts were announced. "I do not criticize these jurors. I have
every confidence this verdict will be set aside." <br><br>
Lawyers representing Guantánamo detainees are being
asked to sign agreements that their consultations with their clients will
not be confidential. Tigar told Amy Goodman, "The only way that we
will ever get to the bottom of the American concentration camp abuses at
Gitmo and Abu Ghraib is if the lawyers for these prisoners are permitted
to tell their stories to the world. If the government can shut off that
communication, which they have attempted to do over and over and over
again, these activities will continue in secret."<br><br>
It is essential that people feel safe in these
perilous times. But, as Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor wrote in a 1995 opinion, "It cannot be too often stated
that the greatest threats to our constitutional freedoms come in times of
crisis." The confidential relationship between attorney and client
sits at the heart of our criminal justice system. We must zealously guard
it or we will all be at risk.<br><br>
<a href="http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021505A.shtml">http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021505A.shtml</a><br><br>
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