Lynne Stewart Sentenced to 28 Months in Prison

Lynne Stewart passed messages along from one of her incarcerated-terrorist clients, to the terrorist's followers.  The message was simple: Kill in the name of Allah.  Today, a judge sentenced Stewart to just over two years in prison.  Hopefully, Ms. Stewart will also be disbarred.  She betrayed the public's trust by serving as a mouthpiece for terrorism.  She should never be given the opportunity to betray the public's trust again.

Comments

[Donald Caster]

For a second, I got really angered by this post. Then I remembered who wrote it (an intelligent person whose opinion I generally respect).

So I can only conclude that this is an excellent exercise in irony. Well done.

[Mike]

Donald: This is a case that has led to many hot debates between friends and me. So I'm not surprised my post angered you.

My take: Stewart wasn't prosecuted for filing too many motions to dismiss, or for trying to free her client. She was prosecuted for serving Abdel-Rahman's mouthpiece in a non-legal forum. Informing the world that Abdel-Rahman says it's okay to start killing again has nothing to do with providing legal services.

By relaying a message from a terrororist to his followers, Stewart herself became a terrorist.

[Fern R]

Wait. There's a controversy over Stewart's prosecution? I spent as little time as possible in law school taking criminal law classes and know very few attorneys who practice criminal law, so please forgive my ignorance. But there are attorneys who think that it is appropriate for a defense attorney to pass notes from her (terrorist) client to other terrorists? Really?

[mythago]

Stewart forgot one of the cardinal rules: don't fall in love with your client (or his cause).

[A. Zarkov]

Stewart forgot one of the cardinal rules: don't fall in love with your client (or his cause).

That’s a good dictum, but I’m afraid Stewart was already in love before she took the case. She loves the enemies of the United States. And of course love is blind. In her own words:

“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.” (From Wikipedia).

So ok Lynn, we see you as dangerous, so we are locking you up. But you got a fair trial unlike the victims of your sweethearts. Do don’t complain we are simply following your own rules. And BTW those guys don’t hand out sissy sentences like 28 months. You get a bullet in the back of the head, or 25 years in the Gulag followed by banishment to a remote part of the country.