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Lynn Stewart Day Of Outrage
From the National Lawyer's Guild:Find your NLG chapter here. Read more from the NLG about the Stewart decision, and more coverage from all over the place. UPDATE: See also some good thinking points from Carey and Heidi, and “Selling Indulgences” on Slate, which compares what Stewart did to what Alberto Gonzales and the other “torture lawyers” in the Bush Administration did:The National Executive Committee of the NLG calls on all Guild chapters to organize and to take part in local actions as part of a “National Day of Outrage” in response to yesterday's Lynne Stewart verdict, which we see as an attack not only on our cherished colleague and fellow NLG member but also on all members of the legal community who represent unpopular clients and causes. We are calling for this coordinated day of action to be held next Thursday, February 17 in your cities, towns, and, if you are a law student, at your school. We are putting together a list of suggested actions to take and will send this out ASAP. Please begin making arrangements and stay tuned for more information. This will be just one step in our ongoing support for Lynne Stewart and in defense of all of those who take on controversial cases.
To me that's really the problem. It seems fairly clear that Stewart broke an agreement she'd made with the court about not speaking about this case. However, that's cause for professional discipline, not a criminal conviction. Meanwhile, the torture lawyers have not been censured in any way for their gross breaches of both professional ethics and basic norms of human rights. This is why the Stewart conviction is outrageous—it reveals the way the law has been manipulated for political purposes and the way the Bush administration continues to get away with murder (literally and figuratively) under cover of its “war on terror.” Instead of putting on their “reasonable” hats and saying, “well, Stewart really did break the rules,” legal professionals of conscience should be outraged at double-standards that make a mockery of both professional codes and the law.
Posted February 13, 2005 10:17 AM | ai action alerts
National Lawyers Guild? Fuck those Commies.
Posted by: Brian at February 14, 2005 12:18 AM
Lynne Stewart is not a lawyer to emulate. She admittedly violated an agreement she signed not to communicate any messages to the media. She decided to violate it.
Her client's rights were not at stake in that scenario; her reasoning was that maybe her clients position would be enhanced if she violated the agreement.
Gag orders happen all of the time (this wasn't a gag order, I know, but it was similar) and it's in each party's interest to violate the gag order -- but violation will open the way to penalties. And in this case, she actually did abet a convicted terrorist to communicate with his group. The fact that she's a lawyer doesn't mean she gets to violate agreements that she's signed.
Posted by: David at February 14, 2005 11:09 AM
Do you ever find yourself wondering how Brian and brain can be so close but yet so far apart?
Posted by: Famous P. at February 14, 2005 02:05 PM
So David, basically what you are arguing is that there is a disconnect between an attorney's concern for a client's rights and a client's position? How then can an attorney be expected to zealously defend the interests of their client, an especially important point when one is defending an unpopular client? Your counter-argument amounts to second-guessing the attorney conducting the case and, moreover, only after the fact. That doesn't seem like much of an argument. Indeed, it seems rather weak, as does the comparison you make between a gag order and the "Special Administrative Measures" that were imposed on Stewart's client in 1997. In eliding the difference between the two, you also pass over that space wherein the government secretly taped conversations between the attorney and her client. And a difference that would seem to have some bearing, I think, on how an attorney, especially one so well versed in the government's abuses of civil liberties as Ms. Stweart, views the line between a client's rights and a client's position. Which brings us to the real heart of the objection, which is that Ms. Stewart did "abet" a convicted terrorist, though what behavior she abetted beyond helping him to communicate is questionable to say the least. I note here the fact that you decided to highlight her client's status as a "convicted terrorist" rather than say, the more neutral term client. What sorts of assumptions and assertions could possibly be lurking behind that choice of words? I would venture that there is a similar motivation involved in the government's prosecution of Ms. Stewart, a prosecution that is too zealous because of a perceived threat to be concerned with the real threat its actions pose to basic rights like the right to counsel or free speech.
Posted by: Famous P. at February 14, 2005 03:03 PM
No I don't. The NLG are scum, using dopey sucker liberal law students to work for peanuts while they rake in the cash in the name of "rights." Just like the ACLU and every other far-left group. I'll be spending the summer working for an evil corporate law firm, because I am an evil capitalist.
Posted by: Brian at February 17, 2005 07:51 PM
OK, I'm replying to an old comment here, but while there is a valid point to be made that criminal prosecution was overreaching, and that the violation of the agreement should have been dealt with by administrative or professional censure, that wasn't the point of my post.
There is absolutely a disconnect between an attorney's concern for civil rights and a client's position. Zealously defending your client does not include your own criminal activity. And the fact that the guy is a convicted terrorist does matter in these contexts. A gag order on, say, the Michael Jackson case involves the right of Jackson to a fair trial without getting the jury tainted and the alleged victim undue publicity.
I'm not "second guessing" anything. She admitted violating an agreement she signed, the penalties for which included prosecution. That's really the end of it for me. She broke a contract she signed and negotiated. I used to work for the Senate. Part of my work involved review of confidential White House documents. I signed an agreement which prohibited me from revealing the contents of the documents. If I did, I faced criminal prosecution, which was spelled out right there. I made the deal. There were very good reasons why those documents were confidential, and accordingly, my prosecution if I revealed them would have been acceptable, especially since I agreed I could be prosecuted for doing so.
In this case, coded messages in the press are often used by terrorists to advise followers what to do. And that's the distinction that "Famous P." is ignoring. Her client was convicted. This isn't an "alleged criminal" anymore. This is a convicted terrorist. And he leads followers, perhaps through "innocent messages."
Posted by: David at February 25, 2005 04:33 PM
