{"id":567,"date":"2009-11-28T08:58:17","date_gmt":"2009-11-28T15:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harvardnsj.com\/?p=567"},"modified":"2009-11-28T08:58:17","modified_gmt":"2009-11-28T15:58:17","slug":"bail-for-convicted-terrorists-lawyer-revoked-sentence-remanded-as-strikingly-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/2009\/11\/bail-for-convicted-terrorists-lawyer-revoked-sentence-remanded-as-strikingly-low\/","title":{"rendered":"Bail for Convicted Terrorist’s Lawyer Revoked; Sentence Remanded as \u201cstrikingly low\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By NSJ Staff Writer <\/strong><\/p>\n

On November 17th, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed<\/a>, but remanded for re-sentencing, the conviction of Lynne Stewart for activities arising out of her representation of Omar Abdel-Rahman<\/a>, the \u201cBlind Sheikh.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abdel-Rahman and nine of his followers were convicted in 1995 of conspiracy to bomb several New York City landmarks.\u00a0 Ms. Stewart represented Abdel-Rahman at his initial trial and continued her representation after his incarceration.\u00a0 In 1997, the Bureau of Prisons initiated Special Administrative Measures (\u201cSAMs\u201d) forbidding Abdel-Rahman from communicating with anyone other than his legal advisors.\u00a0 As part of these SAMs, Ms. Stewart was required to sign an oath that she would not facilitate contact between Abdel-Rahman and the outside world. Despite these measures, Ms. Stewart, in 2000, informed a Reuters reporter in Cairo that Abdel-Rahman had withdrawn his support from a ceasefire between the Egyptian government and Gama\u2019a Islamiyya<\/a>, the terrorist organization to which he had ties.\u00a0 In addition to disseminating this information, Ms. Stewart\u00a0 pretended to engage in a three-way conversation with Abdel-Rahman and her translator, Mohammed Yousry, to prevent guards from detecting the translator\u2019s delivery of information to Abdel-Rahman.<\/p>\n

Ms. Stewart was indicted in 2002, but the initial charges were dropped and a superseding indictment<\/a> was issued in 2003.\u00a0 She was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to 28 months in prison, despite a United States Sentencing Guideline range of 360 months, and was permitted to stay out on bail through her appeal.\u00a0 The appeal was heard on January 29, 2008, but not decided until this month.\u00a0 A time-line of the events may be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among other claims, Ms. Stewart claimed that she released the information despite the existence of the SAMs as part of her \u201czealous representation.\u201d\u00a0 While the trial court noted that she \u201cabused her position as a lawyer,\u201d the Second Circuit seemed to give her professional misconduct even greater weight, dedicating Section 3.b of the opinion to \u201cStewart\u2019s Abuse of Her Status as a Member of the Bar.\u201d\u00a0 It noted:<\/p>\n

Stewart’s actions tended ultimately and ironically to subvert the same fundamental right of which she took advantage–the constitutional right to counsel–by making it less likely that other incarcerated persons will have the same level of access to counsel that her client was given. . . .\u00a0 The district court did not address whether Stewart “abused a position of public or private trust, or used a special skill, in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense,” meriting a two-level enhancement under the Guidelines. . . .\u00a0 The court did not . . . explain how and to what extent the sentence reflected the seriousness of the crimes of conviction in light of the fact that Stewart was engaged as a member of the bar when she committed them.\u00a0 The question therefore remains whether, because she was an experienced and dedicated lawyer acting as such when she broke the law in the manner that she did, her punishment should have been greater than it was.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some question the timing of this decision, coming shortly after the announcement that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad would receive a civilian trial in New York City<\/a>.\u00a0 They fear that these kinds of actions against attorneys who represent terrorism defendants may chill their ability to represent their clients.\u00a0 Others have used this case to highlight the dangers associated with granting civilian trials<\/a> to terrorist suspects in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By NSJ Staff Writer On November 17th, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, but remanded for re-sentencing, the conviction of Lynne Stewart for activities arising out of her representation of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the \u201cBlind Sheikh.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZtUX-99","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}