...by issuing a press release.

While I understand the need to keep captured terrorist leaders from issuing orders to their organizations, I find this particular case very disturbing, both as a lawyer and a free speech advocate.

--PunkDavid

http://nytimes.com/2005/02/11/nyregion/11stewart.html

Lawyer Is Guilty of Aiding Terror

By JULIA PRESTON

Published: February 11, 2005

Lynne F. Stewart, an outspoken lawyer known for representing a long list of unpopular defendants, was convicted yesterday by a federal jury in Manhattan of aiding Islamic terrorism by smuggling messages out of jail from a terrorist client.

In a startlingly sweeping verdict, Ms. Stewart was convicted on all five counts of providing material aid to terrorism and of lying to the government when she pledged to obey federal rules that barred her client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, from communicating with his followers. Her co-defendants, Ahmed Abdel Sattar and Mohamed Yousry, were also convicted of all the charges against them.

The verdict was a major victory for Justice Department prosecutors in one of the country's most important terror cases since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Ms. Stewart's April 2002 indictment was announced in Washington by John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, and the verdict was hailed yesterday by his successor, Alberto R. Gonzales.

The convictions "send a clear, unmistakable message that this department will pursue both those who carry out acts of terrorism and those who assist them with their murderous goals," Mr. Gonzales said.

After a trial that lasted more than seven months, the jurors announced their verdict after 12 days of deliberations that spanned four weeks. In a case watched by lawyers nationwide, the jurors were persuaded that Ms. Stewart had crossed a professional line, from vigorously representing her client to conspiring in his followers' plans to launch violence in Egypt.

In recent days the jurors asked for dozens of government exhibits that went to the question of whether Ms. Stewart intended to help the sheik's terrorist followers. One juror complained to the judge at one point of being harshly treated by another juror.

The jurors returned to the courtroom at 3.17 p.m. yesterday. As the foreman, Juror No. 329, announced their verdict on each count, Ms. Stewart slumped slightly in her chair, and her chief lawyer, Michael E. Tigar, put his hand on her shoulder. She grew pale and rubbed her eyes to stop tears from coming down her face.

There were gasps and sounds of weeping from Ms. Stewart's followers, who filled the wood-paneled courtroom. The daughter of Ms. Stewart's co-defendant Mohamed Yousry, Leslie Yousry Davis, began to sob and covered her face with her hands.

Afterward, Ms. Stewart said she was stunned and vowed to appeal the verdict. She called the trial a government assault on the practice of law.

"I see myself as being a symbol of what people rail against when they say our civil liberties are eroded," she said to a small cluster of her supporters outside the federal district courthouse. "I hope this will be a wake-up call to all the citizens of this country, that you can't lock up the lawyers, you can't tell the lawyers how to do their jobs."

"I will fight on, I'm not giving up," she promised defiantly. "I know I committed no crime. I know what I did was right."

But then her voice wavered and tears came to her eyes.

Ms. Stewart, who is 65, faces up to 30 years in jail. The judge, John G. Koeltl, set her sentencing for July 15. Because she was convicted of a felony, she will be immediately disbarred. She remains free on bail, but cannot travel outside New York State.

Although Judge Koeltl reminded the jurors repeatedly that Osama bin Laden and the World Trade Center attacks were not at issue, images of the Qaeda leader and remembrances of the destruction he wrought pervaded the trial, which took place in a courthouse a few blocks from ground zero.

Ms. Stewart was convicted on two counts of conspiring to provide material aid to terrorists, by making the views and instructions of Mr. Abdel Rahman available to his followers in the Islamic Group, an organization in Egypt with a history of terrorist violence. She was also convicted of three counts of perjury and defrauding the government for flouting federal prison rules that barred Mr. Abdel Rahman, a blind Islamic cleric, from communicating with anyone outside his federal prison in Minnesota except his lawyers and his wife.

Mr. Sattar, 45, an Egyptian-born postal worker from Staten Island who worked as a paralegal in the sheik's 1995 trial, was convicted of conspiring to kill and kidnap in a foreign country, the most serious charge in the trial. He was also convicted of soliciting violence, because of an October 2000 fatwa, or religious edict, that he helped compose that called on Muslims around the world "to fight the Jews and kill them wherever they are." He has been imprisoned and will remain at the Metropolitan Correctional Center until his sentence.

The other co-defendant, Mr. Yousry, 48, an Arabic-language interpreter who helped Ms. Stewart and other lawyers speak with the sheik, was convicted of three counts of terrorism and conspiracy. Like Ms. Stewart, he was out on bail last night.

Ms. Stewart's troubles arose from her work over a decade to defend Mr. Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for inspiring a thwarted 1993 plot to bomb the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and other New York landmarks.

Because of the terror charges in the trial, the eight women and four men on the jury served anonymously, identified only by numbers and their seats in the jury box. Over the past two weeks there were many signs that they were wrestling intensely over the terror conspiracy charges against Ms. Stewart and her co-defendants.The jurors made no comment and left the courthouse at 3:40 p.m. in two vans.

Almost all of the 1,330 exhibits the prosecutors presented were transcripts of secret government audio recordings of calls by Mr. Sattar on his home telephone to the co-defendants and to Egyptian militants overseas, and videotapes of Ms. Stewart's prison meetings with Mr. Abdel Rahman, conducted in Arabic through Mr. Yousry.

The jury appeared to have focused on the evidence that clearly showed that Ms. Stewart had knowingly violated the legal letter of prison rules aimed at silencing the sheik. "She thought she could blow off the rules that apply to everyone else because she's a lawyer," said Anthony Barkow, the assistant United States attorney who made the government's final argument to the jury.

On the stand, Ms. Stewart sometimes appeared deaf to the vicious anti-American preachings of her client, Mr. Abdel Rahman.

The government never showed that any violence resulted from the defendants' actions. The defendants were not accused of aiding terrorism in the United States.

There was little dispute about the central facts in the case. After Mr. Abdel Rahman was sentenced in 1996 to life in prison, his followers issued a series of threats against the United States demanding his release. Prosecutors imposed rules, known as special administrative measures, that barred the sheik, already held in solitary confinement, from communicating with anyone outside prison but his lawyers and his wife.

Ms. Stewart repeatedly signed documents in which she agreed to uphold the rules.

She brought a letter containing messages from Islamic Group members to a meeting with the sheik in the prison in Rochester, Minn., in May 2000. She received a statement from the sheik and on June 14 called a reporter in Cairo and read him the statement. The sheik said he was withdrawing support for a cease-fire the Islamic Group had observed for three years in Egypt. The group never canceled the cease-fire.

Testifying on her own behalf, Ms. Stewart said the press release was part of a legal strategy that involved provoking the government if necessary in order to keep the sheik in the public eye. Ms. Stewart said she was acting within an unwritten lawyer's "bubble" in the prison rules that allowed her to defend her client as she thought best.

I'm too lazy to read this. Let me lead with that.

Not that she should have had to, but didn't she sign something before visiting her client that specifically said that she wouldn't do that, b/c the government was afraid that even one word from that guy could set off an attack?

Punk Dave, as our resident legal expert I would really like to read your thoughts on this matter if you get time to put your thoughts into a post.

so let me put this out of the laws hands and into the common mans hands


if a cop stops me and tells me im not to speed, and i leave him doing 110 mph, should people be upset when im arrested for speeding?

But what if the cop tells you not to chew gum and then arrests you for driving while chewing gum. People should be upset.

And that's a lousy example b/c lawyers are supposed to serve their clients, even the guilty ones, with certain services, which include making public statements. If they aren't allowed to provide those services, shouldn't we be afraid that our legal protections are being eroded?

not if the public statement can be a word that sets off a chain reaction of bombs, and no, it is a good example. she was told not to do something, and in all liklihood signed a paper stating she wouldnt, and even then she snuck the information out there. so again, if a cop tells me not to speed (not to make any statements to anyone in regards to her clients wishes to be heard) and i get arrested for speeding (getting information out to a terrorists best friend), why on earth would anyone complain. its stupid. maybe complain is the wrong word, cause everyone complains, but you (hopefully) see what i mean

This is what I have a problem with:

"Testifying on her own behalf, Ms. Stewart said the press release was part of a legal strategy that involved provoking the government if necessary in order to keep the sheik in the public eye. Ms. Stewart said she was acting within an unwritten lawyer's "bubble" in the prison rules that allowed her to defend her client as she thought best."

There's a difference between being a true advocate for your client and circumventing the rule of law under the guise of being an advocate. What she did was not protected by the attorney-client privilege, nor was it within the scope of her representation of her client. To suggest that her disclosures of her client's "messages" were done purely as a tactical move to induce the government to keep her client under the microscope and within the public eye seems to me like a pretext.

You can't yell fire in a crowded theatre . . .

This makes my brain hurt.

That's not really a new sensation, is it?

Seriously, this woman broke the pledge she made when she began representing him. End of story.

Let's face it folks--all lawyers are aiding terrorism in one way or another.

punkdavid, your thoughts?

I think he's too busy choking ElPhantasmo.

Why as a lawyer and a free speech advocate, do you find this particular case very disturbing David? I'm really curious as to why, because I don't see you as being the type that would represent someone, and then pass on information to other people that would promote or insight further violence against innocent people. I'll give you that much.

I thought her purpose was to represent her client, and to get him off the hook on some retarded technicallity? Not to forward messages to terrorists at his behest.

I'm really curious as to what you think David.

I'm really kind of curious about the circumstances in which a lawyer might find making a public statement so critical to the defense of her client that she would risk her own imprisonment and a terrorist attack.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/17/opini ... itano.html?

No Defense
By ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO

Published: February 17, 2005

THE conviction of Lynne F. Stewart for providing material aid to terrorism and for lying to the government is another perverse victory in the Justice Department's assault on the Constitution.

Ms. Stewart, the lawyer who was convicted last week of five felonies, will be disbarred and faces up to 30 years in jail. She represented Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, not exactly a sympathetic character. He is the leader of the Islamic Group, a terrorist organization that plotted the assassination of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and masterminded the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

He was sentenced in 1996 to life in prison. When Ms. Stewart sought to visit her client in jail, prison officials required her to sign an affirmation that she would abide by special rules requiring that she communicate with the sheikh only about legal matters. The rules also forbade her from passing messages to third parties, like the news media. Yet the jury found that Ms. Stewart frequently made gibberish comments in English to distract prison officials who were trying to record the conversation between the sheikh and his interpreter, and that she "smuggled" messages from her jailed client to his followers.

But if the federal government had followed the law, Ms. Stewart would never have been required to agree to these rules to begin with. Just after 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft gave himself the power to bypass the lawyer-client privilege, which every court in the United States has upheld, and eavesdrop on conversations between prisoners and their lawyers if he had reason to believe they were being used to "further facilitate acts of violence or terrorism." The regulation became effective immediately.

In the good old days, only Congress could write federal criminal laws. After 9/11, however, the attorney general was allowed to do so. Where in the Constitution does it allow that?

Mr. Ashcroft's rules, with their criminal penalties, violate the Sixth Amendment, which grants all persons the right to consult with a lawyer in confidence. Ms. Stewart can't effectively represent her clients - no lawyer can - if the government listens to and records privileged conversations between lawyers and their clients. The threat of a government prosecution would loom over their meetings.

These rules also violate the First Amendment's right to free speech. Especially in a controversial case, a defense lawyer is right to advocate for her client in the press, just as the government uses the press to put forward its case. Unless there is a court order that bars both sides from speaking to reporters, it should be up to the lawyer to decide whether to help her client through the news media.

Ms. Stewart's constitutional right to speak to the news media about a matter of public interest is absolute and should prevent the government from prosecuting her. And since when does announcing someone else's opinion about a cease-fire - as Ms. Stewart did, saying the sheik no longer supported one that had been observed in Egypt - amount to advocating an act of terrorism?

In truth, the federal government prosecuted Lynne Stewart because it wants to intimidate defense lawyers into either refusing to represent accused terrorists or into providing less than zealous representation. After she was convicted, Ms. Stewart said, "You can't lock up the lawyers, you can't tell the lawyers how to do their jobs."

No doubt the outcome of this case will have a chilling effect on lawyers who might represent unpopular clients. Since 9/11 the federal government's message has been clear: if you defend someone we say is a terrorist, we may declare you to be one of them, and you will lose everything.

The Stewart conviction is a travesty. She faces up to 30 years in prison for speaking gibberish to her client and the truth to the press. It is devastating for lawyers and for any American who may ever need a lawyer. Shouldn't the Justice Department be defending our constitutional freedoms rather than assaulting them?

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is an analyst for Fox News and the author of "Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws."