CounterPunch
February 10, 2005
Another Bedrock Right Obliterated
Lynne Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN
Jennifer Van Bergen, J.D., is the author of The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for America (Common Courage Press, 2004). She has written and spoken extensively on civil liberties, human rights, and international law. She is currently organizing a major Forum on Dissent Since 9/11 in Miami from March 11-13. See www.partnersinprotest.org.
In a shocking jury verdict today, a tireless watchdog for liberty was convicted of violating special administrative prison rules and of providing material support to terrorists.
Lynne Stewart never ever thought she could blow off the rules that apply to everyone else. She never thought she was above the law. She never supported or endorsed terrorism. Nor did she ever intend to provide material support to terrorists.
The words she spoke to her client were meant for her client alone and the one who has violated rights here is the Department of Justice. They violated something so sacred that it can hardly be spoken without somehow losing the value of it: they violated the attorney/client privilege. The DOJ violated this privilege by listening in on her conversations with her client, which they then took out of context and tried to make into a monstrous thing.
But is anyone prosecuting them for this violation? No.
The DOJ has violated the last vestige of democracy: the judiciary, by using this system to destroy one of the watchdogs of liberty, our criminal defense lawyers. Without criminal defense lawyers, who will protect us from government incursions of our rights?
Lynne continued to believe in her client's innocence, and to declare that evidence against him was fabricated by our government in order to secure his conviction.
Has this fact come out anywhere? Has any newspaper revealed that the client Stewart represented was convicted on fabricated evidence? Have any of them investigated the charge? Has the Department of Justice investigated it? No? Why not?
The New York Times writes today about Stewart's conviction: "The government never showed that any violence ever resulted from Mr. Sattar's calls or from any action by Ms. Stewart or Mr. Yousry; there were no victims in the case. The Islamic Group never cancelled the cease-fire, which remains in effect to this day. The defendants were never accused of plotting any terrorism in the United States. The evidence showed that Ms. Stewart had had nothing to do with writing or issuing the fatwa."
AND: "Ultimately the jury appeared to have been persuaded by the fact that Ms. Stewart, a lawyer, had clearly violated the legal letter of the prison rules."
Violated the legal letter of prison rules? A violation of an administrative measure is not a crime. Do you sentence an attorney to twenty years in jail for not following a regulation?
This day the Justice Department has done a great injustice, not just to Lynne Stewart, but to our entire system of justice, to our country, and to our democracy. I fear the upshot of this event and can only hope the members of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals are able to maintain their clear-headedness in the face of the deep-seated fears of terrorism we all share and the huge barrage of innocuous and irrelevant evidence they will have to review.
Lynne Stewart's conviction does not only hurt the bar; it hurts us all.
http://www.counterpunch.org/bergen02112005.html
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