Lynne Stewart fights for her freedom
By
John Catalinotto
New York
Published Jun 9, 2005 8:13 PM
Radical human rights
attorney Lynne Stewart reviewed her own continuing legal struggle at a Workers
World Party forum in New York on June 3. Stewart and her supporters charge that
she has been falsely accused of “helping terrorists.” She was
convicted and faces a possible 30 years in prison at her Sept. 23 sentencing at
the U.S. courthouse in downtown Manhattan.
The attorney’s defenders
are working on both legal and popular challenges to her conviction. Their hope
is to either get the case thrown out based on her First Amendment rights or to
minimize the sentence to no actual jail time.
Specifically, Stewart was
convicted for violating Special Administrative Measures (SAMS), imposed by the
U.S. Bureau of Prisons, by issuing a news release about her client Sheik
Abdel-Rahman in 1995. There was a gag order on the case of her client. He had
been convicted of planning the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
She
explained that violating a SAMS is normally punished by refusing the attorney
further contact with her client. In this case, the government used a conspiracy
law to “bootstrap” the SAMS into criminal charges. Stewart spoke of
the legitimate role of an attorney of “keeping your client alive in the
media” to explain why she issued a news release for
Abdel-Rahman.
The government’s goal with these charges was to
intimidate attorneys from representing radical or revolutionary clients, Stewart
said. But some lawyers have told Stewart that her struggle has inspired them to
become active and aggressive defense attorneys.
Stewart has received much
support from the progressive legal community and from the many left political
activists who know what an important contribution she has made over her 27 years
as an attorney.
She has represented, among other people, David Gilbert of
the Weather Underground; Richard Williams of the United Freedom Front; Larry
Davis, acquitted by reason of self-defense of the attempted murder of New York
police officers; Sekou Odinga of the Black Liberation Army; and Nasser Ahmed,
released after being imprisoned for over three years on non-existent
“secret evidence.”
On the web site for Stewart’s
defense, lynnestewart.org, readers can find a list of her many upcoming speaking
engagements, plans to demonstrate at her sentencing on Sept. 23, and details of
a campaign to write letters asking for clemency to Manhattan federal Judge John
Koetl by way of the defense committee. Readers can also get information by
calling (212) 625-9696.
Also at the WWP forum, Andre Powell of the
Baltimore All-Peoples Congress reported on the struggle against that
city’s Central Booking, where an average of more than one detainee a month
has died while awaiting trial, and against the police sweeps of African American
neighborhoods.
Sara Flounders, a national co-coordinator of the
International Action Center, discussed developments in the anti-war movement.
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