"Strong letter to follow..."

Good riddance.

The government in the Bismullah-Parhat litigation is worried about conduct similar (though not as grave) as that which Stewart was convicted of. Her case highlights some of their legitimate interests as I point out over at the AIDP Blog here. Thanks for posting this.

-GSM

The blind cleric is a (convicted) terrorist, who inspired and masterminded the actual deaths of Americans during the first Twin Towers attack (intending of course to commit mass murder if the skyscrapers had fallen as planned). His attorney aided and abetted him in his continuing terrorism plots against America. Spies and saboteurs during wartime, at least, used to be executed. Disbarment is too lenient a penalty, as is imprisonment, for terrorist conspirators. The War Against Islamic Extremists cannot be won in the criminal courts of the American justice system. Both Lincoln and Roosevelt realized that truth during their times, and they resorted to extra-judicial procedures, invoking extra-constitutional powers to protect America from the covert spies and saboteurs of their times.

As I recall, she used her position as an attorney to facilitate communications between a convicted terrorist and his followers on the outside. Her punishment has been extremely lenient. I predict Scooter Libby will be sentenced to more jail time.

in other words, she is a hero.

Can we get a hand count of just how many people agree with this idiocy? I expect it will be quite a bit larger than the tally of Lynne Stewart supporters.

Steve and ed o,
I think you would both be surprised at how low the count would be. I'm a leftie and most of my friends are lefties. I don't hear anybody praising her for being a hero. The only people I hear talking about her (and they are a very, very small minority of my lefty friends) are those who wonder whether or not what she was accused of had anything at all to do with reaching the followers of her client. I haven't followed the case enough to really have an opinion, but my lefty friends make the case seem pretty shaky. I take their opinion with a grain of salt, but would love to hear the case outlined by someone from the other sdie.
I would hope that we can all agree that if she wasn't passing messages, and is merely sympathetic to her client, then she shouldn't have been prosecuted.

If only the CIA hadn't sprung Abdel-Rahman from an Egyptian jail and brought him to America (for his services as a money and arms conduit between the Company and the Mujahadeen) then maybe the first WTC bombing never would have happened. Yet I don't see Ray Fuller or Ed O. calling for Bill Webster's "extrajudicial" execution.

Do we even know the nature of the "communication" and the "aiding" enough to make a value judgement as to the severity of their crime (and thus, apparently, to cast moral aspersions)?

she was feted in law schools after indictment. she was defended by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the organization which is coordinating the defense of Gitmo terrorists by the "pro bono" efforts of large law firms. despite this, I am still supposed to be so credulous as to believe those involved in these activities, on a pro bono basis of course, are just patriotic americans who love this country as opposed to america hating terrorist sympathizers.

“Jane Fonda still needs to pay for adhesion to the enemy in time of war, but she gets the same pass as Ted Kennedy does for murder.”

Ted Kennedy’s crime was more like manslaughter than murder. He was certainly guilty of leaving the scene of an accident, yet he never received any criminal sanction. Jane Fonda seems as guilty as Axis Sally (Mildred Gillars) except Gillars had sworn an oath of allegiance to The Third Reich. While she was charged on 8 counts of treason, the jury convicted her on only one: her part in the Nazi play, Vision of Invasion broadcast to the US troops. This play was designed to frighten the Normandy invasion troops. The jury deliberated for a long time indicating they came close to an acquittal. This shows that convicting Fonda of treason would have been more of an uphill battle than Gillars. The Vietnam War was an unpopular undeclared war, and while her activities in Vietnam were certainly used as propaganda, I suspect it would have difficult to prove she deliberately wanted to demoralize American troops.

Nevertheless it’s unfortunate that Fonda never really had to suffer for her anti-Americanism. She should have been shunned by society. Unfortunately American society is now divided against itself, which the real shame.

Like many others, I didn't give the Duke Lacrosse players the benefit of the doubt until I heard more of the facts. I strongly suspect that those who feted her is law schools were among those still insisting that Alger Hiss was innocent as were the Rosenbergs. For some people, America is always wrong.

Insofar as the "left" is the Cindy Sheehan crowd, many of them do regard Stewart as a hero - Sheehan herself publicly compared Stewart to Atticus Finch (the exact words apparently were "Lynne is my human Atticus Finch.") - AFTER Stewart's conviction.

They're a small percentage of the country, but they make a lot of noise.

Nick

those who regard her as a hero are also the folks who are coordinating the defenses of the Gitmo terrorists. somehow, if there are terrorists around, they seem to be there enabling them and defending them for some reason. is it the love of this country or some pro bono ideal that drives them-nope, we know that is nonsense. people like Stewart hate this country, would gladly see it destroyed and there are tons of lawyers from prominent law firms out there assisting in the process on a "pro bono" basis.

The ABA Journal wrote a sympathetic article when she was first indicted. One defense lawyer said that the indictment made her (the lawyer being quoted) fearful of incurring prosecution, and threw all the standards into doubt. I wrote an article to the Journal replying that when in doubt, don't pass along murder orders from your imprisoned client to his followers -- one of the things that Stewart was in essence accused of. The orders involved ending a truce with the Egyptian government and resuming attacks on Egyptian troops, if I recall.

Huh? Stewart has now been properly convicted. That has nothing to do with the absurd claim that people must be America-haters if they doubted her guilt before a conviction was entered.

I previously summarized the charges made against Stewart at StubbornFacts. One of the charges for which she was convicted involved passing on a statement by the Abdel-Raman that he no longer supported a cease fire being observed by his followers and supporters in Egypt. She also distracted guards so he could slip messages to others visiting with them.

Not only did she contribute to the terrorism actions which Abdel-Raman signaled through her from prison, she dealt a massive set-back to those who advocate for criminal defense lawyers to be made available to terrorist suspects. By betraying her oaths and exceeding the scope of proper zealous representation, she gave ample ammunition to critics who argue against such representation.

What became of the present aspect of the clear and present danger test? Has Lynn Stewart's communication in fact killed more or fewer people than Laura Bush's car?

I think the difficulty that some people may have with this turns on the evidence against Stewart and not on the supposition that criminal defense lawyers should generally be able to help criminals commit crimes while they're defending them.

I don't think anyone thinks that mob lawyers should help imprisoned mob bosses order hits, or that Stewart should be allowed to help Abdel-Rahman commit more terrorism from prison. As PatHMV sets out, the crimes of which Stewart was convicted are quite serious.

So... I suspect that the people who support Stewart either (1) aren't familiar with the specific facts and think that Stewart was tarred for telling Abdel-Rahman's kids that he loves them or something like that, or (2) suspect that the evidence against Stewart was weak and that she was essentially someone who stepped up in defense of an unpopular cause and was retaliated against for it.

I know nothing of the evidence against Stewart, I assume that the jury did its job properly, and until I learn further information, I'm happy that she's disbarred.

Heh, I knew the "innocent until proven guilty" hangover from the Duke lacrosse case wouldn't last long.

Some people believed Stewart was being wrongly persecuted by the government for defending an unpopular client. In fact, she turned out to be guilty, so they were wrong. But smearing people as America-haters because they gave her the benefit of the doubt in advance of her conviction is, in fact, an attitude demonstrably at odds with the values expressed in our Constitution.

Agreed. I'm not ready to associate myself with ed o's view, which throws out a whole lot of decent, if often misguided babies with a small, but intolerably fetid puddle of bath water.

That said, the correct punishment for Stewart was firing squad, then disbarment.

In the interests of irony, I present this quote from Ms. Stewart herself, which appeared in Monthly Review, November 22, 2004:

I'm such a strange amalgam of old-line things and new-line things. I don't have any problem with Mao or Stalin or the Vietnamese leaders or certainly Fidel locking up people they see as dangerous. Because so often, dissidence has been used by the greater powers to undermine a people's revolution. The CIA pays a thousand people and cuts them loose, and they will undermine any revolution in the name of freedom of speech.

Now there's a believer in Constitutional principle.

no, just the bizarro world of making analogies that make no sense. Lynne Stewart was a bad person before indictment, committed a crime and continues to be a bad person who hates and would gladly see this country destroyed. she allies herself with the worst terrorists and mass murderers the world over yet is a hero to the left, being feted in law schools with fellow travellers of hers continuing to somehow hold the high ground while defending terrorists at Gitmo. what, in your bizarro world, makes that in any way analagous to the Duke case?