Attorney/Client Privilege Found Guilty

Today, a blow for attorney/client privilege. Attorney Lynne Stewart is found guilty of aiding terrorists.

Below are a few excerpts from a New York Times article (note that you will need to sign-up for a free NYTimes.com registered member login):

In a startlingly sweeping verdict, Ms. Stewart was convicted on all five counts of providing material aid to terrorism and of lying to the government when she pledged to obey federal rules that barred her client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, from communicating with his followers.

In a case watched by lawyers nationwide, the jurors were persuaded that Ms. Stewart had crossed a professional line, from vigorously representing her client to conspiring in his followers' plans to launch violence in Egypt.

Ms. Stewart was convicted on two counts of conspiring to provide material aid to terrorists, by making the views and instructions of Mr. Abdel Rahman available to his followers in the Islamic Group, an organization in Egypt with a history of terrorist violence. She was also convicted of three counts of perjury and defrauding the government for flouting federal prison rules that barred Mr. Abdel Rahman, a blind Islamic cleric, from communicating with anyone outside his federal prison in Minnesota except his lawyers and his wife.

Jennifer Van Bergen's article in CounterPunch,
Lynne Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All, presents a bit more substance to the items in the Time article which only superficially cover the case. Here are some comments to compare to the minimal coverage of the Times article:

Lynne Stewart never ever thought she could blow off the rules that apply to everyone else. She never thought she was above the law. She never supported or endorsed terrorism. Nor did she ever intend to provide material support to terrorists.

The words she spoke to her client were meant for her client alone and the one who has violated rights here is the Department of Justice. They violated something so sacred that it can hardly be spoken without somehow losing the value of it: they violated the attorney/client privilege. The DOJ violated this privilege by listening in on her conversations with her client, which they then took out of context and tried to make into a monstrous thing.

But is anyone prosecuting them for this violation? No.

The DOJ has violated something more, as well. They have violated the right of an accused to have zealous counsel represent them. This right is so fundamental that our Framers put it in the Bill of Rights: the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

The DOJ has violated the last vestige of democracy: the judiciary, by using this system to destroy one of the watchdogs of liberty, our criminal defense lawyers. Without criminal defense lawyers, who will protect us from government incursions of our rights?

Now, the idea of a convicted terrorist having any sort of privilege is perhaps unfathomable to a jury. But that privilege is considered sacrosanct and we all have it, we all may call upon the attorney/client privilege because without it, we have no defense attorneys, we have no defense, and we have no witnesses to government abuse of our rights.

Another interesting, well-researched opinion, Lynne Stewart and the American Inquisition, ties in historical references to modern events. A very clever link which should remind us all that history does have a way of repeating itself.

For more information about Lynne Stewart, go her web site - www.lynnestewart.org .

Drip, drip, drip... little by little, each of our rights are being eroded.