Lawyer Stewart Claims Terror Sentence Punishes Free Speech

By Patricia Hurtado - Wed Feb 29 17:38:41 GMT 2012

Lynne F. Stewart, the lawyer imprisoned for helping an incarcerated Egyptian cleric pass messages to his terrorist followers, told a U.S. appeals court her 10-year sentence is punishment for exercising her free- speech rights.

The attorney was found guilty by a jury in 2005 of helping her former client, the blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, smuggle messages out of a high-security prison after he was convicted in 1995 of plotting to blow up the United Nations, an FBI building, two tunnels and a bridge in New York.

Prosecutors complained that Stewarts initial sentence of 28 months in prison was too lenient. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ordered U.S. District Judge John Koeltl to reconsider the term, questioning whether it was appropriate given the magnitude of the offense. Koeltl later resentenced Stewart to 10 years.

Herald Price Fahringer, Stewarts lawyer, told the appeals court today that the original term was appropriate. Stewart is being punished for statements she made after she was first sentenced which are protected by the U.S. Constitutions First Amendment, he said.

Upon leaving the courtroom after she was initially sentenced in 2006, Stewart told supporters outside the Manhattan Federal Courthouse that she could serve her 28-month sentence standing on my head. She also said in interviews with the media that she would do it again and not do anything differently.

Fahringer told the appeals court today that Koeltl punished Stewart for the comments to her supporters. Upholding Koeltls amended sentence would result in a chilling effect upon free speech uttered outside the courthouse for fear that the same thing could happen to them that happened to Lynne Stewart, Fahringer said.

Judge Robert Sack, one of the three judges on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals who have heard both challenges of the case, said he was concerned that Stewarts comments reflected a lack of remorse.

Fahringer countered that Stewarts statements were ambiguous.

And if it is ambiguous, under the First Amendment, you have to give the speaker the benefit of the doubt, he said.

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Lawyer Stewart Claims Terror Sentence Punishes Free Speech