Fwd: [MumiaNYC] *Lynne Stewart's Sentence Broken Down/Her Autobiographical Statement

[ilyan]

There is a blind Labour Politician who betrayed British Citizens by 
making them liable to the corrupt US Justice system with no defence from 
British Justice.   How should he be punished?
Should the whole Labour Party be punished?
Ilyan


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[MumiaNYC] *Lynne Stewart's Sentence Broken Down/Her 
Autobiographical Statement
Date: 	Mon, 02 Jul 2012 02:34:11 -0000
From: 	info at freemumia.com
Reply-To: 	MumiaNYC-owner at yahoogroups.com
To: 	MumiaNYC at yahoogroups.com



*/Sis. Kiilu Nyasha writes: This is such an outrage -- designed no doubt 
to send a chilling message to all defense lawyers who represent 
activists/resisters.  Be sure to send Lynne some love and support (See 
below).  She's in her 70s with health problems.  Moreover, she's being 
forced to serve her time in Texas thousands of miles from her loved ones 
in NY, making visits a real hardship for her husband and offspring. /*
*//*
Court Confirms Ten-Year Sentence for Lynne Stewart
BY JEFF MACKLER
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today confirmed the 
2010 decision of Federal District Court Judge John Koeltl to change his 
28-month jail sentence for radical attorney and human rights activist, 
Lynne Stewart, to ten years. The court's June 28, 2012 decision was not 
unexpected.
Following federal prosecutors' appeal of what was widely considered a 
"lenient sentence," the Second Circuit all but ordered a compliant 
Koeltl to re-sentence Stewart and harshly. Koeltl did just that forcing 
Stewart to appeal to the very court that originally pressured Koeltl, in 
what was widely considered a "career decision" to do Stewart great harm.
Stewart was convicted at an outrageous 2005 New York frame-up trial on 
five counts of conspiracy to aid and abet and provide material support 
to terrorism. Her crime? Representing the "blind Sheik," the Egyptian 
cleric, Omar Abdel Rachman, who has also been convicted on trumphed-up 
conspiracy charges, Stewart issued a press release from her client 
stating his views on how Egyptian Muslim oppositionists should react to 
the ongoing crimes and murders of Egypt's then President Hosni Mubarak.
Stewart was convicted of violating a vaguely-worded court-ordered SAM 
(Special Administrative Measure) that barred her from revealing her 
client's opinions. The penalty for such violations had traditionally 
been a mild slap on the wrist, perhaps a warning to not repeat the 
"violation" and to bar attorney-client visits for a few months. Stewart, 
barring an unlikely Supreme Court reversal, will now serve her ten-year 
sentence with perhaps a one-year or ten percent reduction for "good 
behavior." She is presently incarcerated at FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, 
Texas.
Koeltl's original 28-month sentence statement, in the face of federal 
prosecutors demanding 30 years, noted that Stewart, known for 
representing the poor and oppressed for three decades with little 
financial remuneration, was a "credit to the legal profession." Stewart 
served as leadcounsel for her client along with former U.S. Attorney 
General Ramsey Clark, who testified on her behalf during the trial. 
Clark himself has issued similar press releases with no punishment. 
Indeed, an indignant prosecutor during Stewart's trail suggested that 
Clark himself be charged with conspiracy, but his superiors decided that 
imprisoning the nation's former top attorney was not yet in their game 
plan and the suggestion was ignored.
The Second Circuit decision was based on the allegations that Stewart 
demonstrated insufficient deference to the original sentence. The court 
claimed that her statement to the media immediately following her 
sentence that, "I can do 28 months standing on my head" demonstrated 
contempt for the legal system. I was standing next to Stewart at that 
moment and was saw nothing other than a great expression of relief that 
she would not be sentenced, in effect to death, based on the 30 years 
that federal prosecutors sought. Stewart entered the sentencing hearing 
on that day, totally ignorant of whether her sentence would be the 
deeply punishing 30 years demanded by the federal prosecutors or perhaps 
something that she, 70 years old at the time, could "live with" and look 
forward to a normal life. She carried nothing but a plastic bag, some 
medicines and a toothbrush.
The Second Circuit also too umbrage at Stewart's courageous statement 
when she took the stand to make her closing remarks. Her attorney at 
that moment, Michael Tiger, asked, referring to Stewart's issuing the 
press release on her client's behalf, "Lynne, if you had to do it all 
over again would you do the same thing?" With a tear in her eye, Stewart 
stated, "I would hope that I would have the courage to do it again, I 
would do it again." Stewart also insisted that her sworn duty to 
represent her client had to weighed against the formalities of laws or 
court orders that prevented such diligent representation.
This refusal to bow to authority, to show the "required deference" to 
legal bullies with power, outraged her persecutors, who sought vengeance 
in the rigged criminal "justice" system.
Stewart's now rejected appeal argued three essential points:

I.  In relying on Lynne Stewart's public statements to enhance the 
original sentence of 28 months, her First Amendment rights were abridged

II. The fourfold increase in the sentence was substantively unreasonable 
and failed to balance her lifetime of contribution to the community and 
country with the criminal act of which she was convicted.

III The Judge's findings of Perjury and Misuse of her position as an 
Attorney on which he also based the increase, were error.
"Free Lynne Stewart" must remain the rallying cry of all those who 
cherish civil liberties and democratic rights. Stewart, like so many 
others, but perhaps among the first tier, was a victim of the 
government-promoted malicious and murderous "war on terror" aimed at 
stifling all dissentand imprisoning the innocent to justify its wars 
against working people at home and against the oppressed and exploited 
across the globe.
Write Stewart at:
Lynne Stewart 53504-054
FMC Carswell
P.O. Box27137
Ft. Worth, Texas
Contributions can be made payable to the:
Lynne Stewart Organization
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
Jeff Mackler is the West Coast Coordinator of the Lynne Stewart Defense 
Committee
=======

Thanks, Carole Seligman for this Autobiographical statement from Lynne 
Stewart (12/11)

My name is Lynne Stewart and I am currently jailed by the US government 
at, Federal Medical Center, a medical prison in Texas.  I am serving a 
ten year sentence.  Before this I was a top criminal defense lawyer in 
New York City for many decades.
Like so many others, I came to "the city" from somewhere else --not 
Kansas or Iowa, but only a subway ride away -- Eastern Queens, white 
Queens of the nineteen fifties.  In l961 I lived with my infant 
daughter, Brenna, on Broome Street near Pitt with a view of the 
Williamsburg Bridge.  The Lower East Side was the beginning of a post 
graduate education which was advanced in depth and racist enlightenment 
the following Fall when I began as an elementary school librarian in the 
heart of Black Harlem. My experiences there and as part of the activist 
militant movement of the 1960s -- particularly community control of 
schools; anti Viet Nam war, my meeting and partnership with Ralph 
Poynter, my husband; my subsequent move to PS 64 on 9 Street and Avenue 
C and the challenge of fighting the problems of my own neighbors and 
community -- all contributed to changing a very savvy innocent into a 
woman warrior for people's and particularly children's rights.
By the early '70s the thrilling spirit of the 60's, and particularly our 
struggle around the schools, was dying -- co-opted and blatantly coldly 
bought off. "Comrades" we thought were at the barricades shoulder to 
shoulder with us, were more interested in a job or an apartment or a 
political appointment than in saving the children, even their own.  (The 
beginning of the "I got mine" mentality that has morphed into the 
privileged 1%.)  I was in a quandary: Should I squander my talents 
shoring up an educational system that was racist and doomed children to 
future failures or should I move on?
I will never forget the day I went, after school, to his storefront 
motorcycle shop to talk to Ralph.  I told him that I felt if I remained 
in the school system I would end up an eccentric, a shopping bag lady, 
driven mad by the daily wanton cruelty and racism.  He said, "Well, what 
do you want to do?" (At that moment, I had two children and he had four 
and I was expecting our youngest. He had a struggling small business.)  
I said "You know I always wanted to be a lawyer, go to law school." He 
said, with no hesitation, "Then I guess you better do it." And I did.  
Our baby girl was born in April 1971. I started Rutgers Law School with 
a scholarship (a full ride, as the young people say today) in September, 
and was fortunate to find Arthur Kinoy, a renowned Constitutional law 
scholar and a warrior of the Civil Rights legal struggle in Mississippi, 
as a teacher. Thirty years later when the government came after me, 
Arthur accorded me my highest accolade when at a public rally he said I 
was the Peoples' Lawyer.  And I was.
I don't want to present my career to you -- that's for another day. I 
can say that for thirty years I practiced law as I lived my life 
according to principles of love and service, that which we talk about 
every Sunday at St. Marks, the "do unto others" and the "love your 
brothers and sisters as yourself," and according to the principles of 
Justice that have become part of my life from my years of Political 
Struggle. I had a forum to fight in -- the courtroom -- and I loved 
every minute of it.
Many of you know that the U.S. came after me for being too good a lawyer 
for my clients, and when representing Dr. Omar Abdel Rahman, an Egyptian 
Muslim cleric, accused of terrorism on the word of a double agent, I 
made a press release to Reuters News on his behalf. He had been a leader 
in the anti-Mubarak, free Egypt movement for twenty years and the news 
release was to express his views of the current situation in Egypt, 
publicly.  For this I was convicted of aiding terrorism.  It is a joy to 
me that the Arab Spring that ousted Mubarak and the continuation of the 
Egyptian quest for true democracy has put the lie, and the shame to the 
U.S. government.
When I spoke earlier of the philosophy I espoused during my career,  I 
think it was best expressed in a speech I gave  to the National Lawyers 
Guild Convention.  I stated the following;
We have formidable enemies not unlike those in the tales of ancient 
days. There is a consummate evil that unleashes its dogs of war on the 
helpless; an enemy motivated only by insatiable greed, with no thought 
of consequences. In this enemy there is no love of the land or the 
creatures that live there, no compassion for the people. This enemy will 
destroy the air we breathe and the water we drink as long as the dollars 
keep filling up their money boxes.
...we have been charged once again, with, and for, our quests, ... to 
shake the very foundations of the continents.
We go out to stop police brutality - To rescue the imprisoned - To 
change the rules for those who have never ever been able to get to the
starting line much less run the race, because of color, physical 
condition, gender, mental impairment.
We go forth to preserve the air and land and water and sky and all the 
beasts that crawl and fly.
We go forth to safeguard the right to speak and write, to join; to 
learn, to rest safe at home, to be secure, fed, healthy, sheltered, 
loved and loving, to be at peace with ones identity.
... Our quests are formidable. We have in Washington a poisonous 
government that spreads its venom to the body politic in all corners of 
the globe. We have war - big war in Iraq, big war in Afghanistan, 
smaller wars in Columbia, Central Africa, Southeast Asia. We have 
detainees and political prisoners at home and now ... we have those 
Democratic and Republican conventions and then an election, with the 
corporate media ready to hype the results and drown out the righteous 
protests."
We still have quests and they are not those that can only be 
accomplished by lawyers. They are for everyone.  I am still fighting 
from inside the prison -- speaking out for the underdogs and those who 
are always kicked to the curb.
I want to be in the real world (although this is real enough) to be able 
to organize everyone to the terrible torture and tragedy of prisons and 
particularly, the brave men and women, of the struggles of the '60s who 
are held in the harshest conditions and have been for 30 or more years 
--to name a few, Sundiata Acoli, Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Jaan 
Laaman, Mutulu Shakur, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox.  Many more 
political prisoners are listed on the Jericho website.
I too confronted the Judges who thought that my original sentence was 
too light for my "crime" on February 29 in the Federal Court  at Foley 
Square. It was good that many people came to demonstrate collectively 
our contempt for this kind of prosecution and our recognition that their 
punishment of true defenders will not deter the brave warriors who seek 
Justice!








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