Lynne Stewart is a political prisoner. She's a victim of two occupants of the White House. First, Bully Boy Bush who went after her. Second, Barack Obama who refused to let her original sentence stand and demanded the judge re-sentence her (to a longer sentence -- when you make the demand for re-sentencing, that is what you're ordering). She's a 73-year-old breast cancer survivor who broke no law but has been given a ten year sentence. Remember that the next time Barack trots out his sick mommy for sympathy. If he gave a damn about his mother or that cancer that claimed her, he damn well wouldn't be putting an elderly cancer survivor behind bars for 10 years when she never broke the damn law.
On last week's Law and Disorder Radio, an hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, attorneys Heidi Boghosian, and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) discussed her case.
Michael Ratner: Heidi, we've covered the plight and the imprisonment of Lynne Stewart a number of times on this show. We've interviewed Lynne, we've had her in our studio. She's an incredibly remarkable lawyer. But unfortunately, she's in prison. And she's been trying to appeal a very long sentence -- ten years. Can you give us an update on where that is going right now?
Heidi Boghosian: Michael, we learned a week or so ago that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has turned down Lynne Stewart's request for a reconsideration on what listeners may recall was actually a second sentence, a much harsher sentence than Judge [John G.] Koeltl who heard her case initially imposed. He gave her what I think was a year-and-a-half.
Michael Ratner: 24 months --
Heidi Boghosian: 24 months that would include time served. The government came back to him and said that essentially this wasn't harsh enough, you have to reconsider. They criticized his decision -- a decision that was based in part on a volume, hundreds of letters that clients and friends and colleagues wrote on behalf of Lynne attesting to her many contributions really in the field of what we might call poverty law, defending those who traditionally don't get the kind of defense that they really need. And Judge Koeltl then sentenced her, in what many of us thought was really a travesty of justice, to ten years, given her health, her age, the body of her work. She's in a medical facility in Texas and on hearing the news that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected her request, she wrote of a favorite line of Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet: "Pity me that the heart is slow to learn what the swift mind beholds at every turn" ("Pity Me Not"). And the next step in this case will be the Supreme Court of the United States. The defense has 90 days to petition the Supreme Court to take the case and obviously it has to be based on the issues raised on appeal which includes what she calls the sentencing fiasco. A sad turn of events for really a feisty spirit who has, we've heard, helped a lot of women in the facility she's in, as a jailhouse lawyer and I think she's actually been subjected to some retalitory action because of her assistance.
Michael Ratner: I mean, Lynne is someone who doesn't give up so I'm sure she has her fighting spirit intact in prison but it is an outrageously long sentence of ten years. The conviction was already outrageous as we reminded our people that the conduct she was alleged to have done was done under --
Heidi Bohosian: [Attorney General] Janet Reno, under the Clinton administration. And they just gave her a slap on the wrist, said don't do it again. It was essentially not a criminal act. It was a procedural administral adminstrative violation by -- She was forced to sign what are called Special Administrative Measures saying she would act in a certain way in her representation of the so-called blind sheik. And Reno didn't see fit to do anything other than to caution her to do it again. Yet [Attorney General John] Ashcroft comes in under Bush and they made --
Michael Ratner: After 9-11.
Heidi Boghosian: After 9-11. He appeared on the [David] Letterman show in a highly unusual move announcing the indictment of Lynne, really held her up as an example we think of warning to progressive lawyers who might want to represent individuals who speak out against government policies.