The Lynne Stewart conviction
I might have watched this trial if it had been shown on TV, and if I didn't have to listen to Nancy Grace comment on it in any way. Lynne Stewart's a pretty repulsive old Lefty mouthpiece, a type I have a very low tolerance for. Then again, I'm ultra-tough on prosecutors. I like to see the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard for conviction met with substantial clarity, without requiring a lot of squinting by the jurors.
In that sense, I'm glad that I didn't see the trial. Despite the low regard in which I hold the accused, now the convicted, I wouldn't have hesitated to speak up if I thought that the prosecutors didn't meet their burden. That would have been an annoying impulse to feel obliged to follow on Stewart's behalf.
Anyway, Stewart's 65 and is eligible to get 20 years. She just couldn't play by the rules, or so says the jury. I hope she gets a comfortable position in the prison library, given her age. By the charges against her, it's probably a pretty good deal that she's off the street. Let it be a lesson to other ham-headed radical lawyers who would try the same gag.
In that sense, I'm glad that I didn't see the trial. Despite the low regard in which I hold the accused, now the convicted, I wouldn't have hesitated to speak up if I thought that the prosecutors didn't meet their burden. That would have been an annoying impulse to feel obliged to follow on Stewart's behalf.
Anyway, Stewart's 65 and is eligible to get 20 years. She just couldn't play by the rules, or so says the jury. I hope she gets a comfortable position in the prison library, given her age. By the charges against her, it's probably a pretty good deal that she's off the street. Let it be a lesson to other ham-headed radical lawyers who would try the same gag.
NEW YORK - A veteran civil rights lawyer was convicted Thursday of crossing the line by smuggling messages of violence from one of her jailed clients — a radical Egyptian sheik — to his terrorist disciples on the outside.
The jury deliberated 13 days over the past month before convicting Lynne Stewart, 65, a firebrand, left-wing activist known for representing radicals and revolutionaries in her 30 years on the New York legal scene.
The trial, which began last June, focused attention on the line between zealous advocacy and criminal behavior by a lawyer. Some defense lawyers saw the case as a government warning to attorneys to tread carefully in terrorism cases.
Stewart slumped in her chair as the verdict was read, shaking her head and later wiping tears from her eyes. Her supporters gasped upon hearing the conviction, and about two dozen of them followed her out of court, chanting, "Hands off Lynne Stewart!"
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