For Lynne Stewart: FREEDOM!

Lynne Stewart, targeted by the Bush-era Justice Department for daring to forcefully advocate for her client, is in danger — and only immense popular support can save her.

She’s in danger not just from a recent cancer diagnosis, but from the cancerous decision of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to re-sentence her to a longer, harsher term than the trial court decided.

Stewart has had an exemplary career as a defense lawyer for the poor, the oppressed and those deemed unpopular by the establishment. It was in this context that she was targeted by the state and unjustly convicted of providing material support to an alleged terrorist conspiracy, for speaking out on behalf of her client, the blind, Egyptian cleric.

The late William Kunstler, a radical lawyer who represented similar clients, recently said that defense attorneys should be “officers of their clients,” instead of “officers of the court.”* Lynne Stewart was, like Kunstler, an “officer of [her] client,” which is another reason she was targeted.

She violated what was essentially a prison regulation — an SAM, or Special Administrative Measure, one that she probably rightly thought couldn’t possibly supersede her constitutional and professional duty to defend her client. However, she underestimated the base opportunism of government and the subservience of the courts, even at the costs of constitutional rights and alleged “guarantees.”

On the evening of July 8, Lynne Stewart’s friends, admirers and supporters will gather at Judson Memorial Church [55 Washington Square South, New York City] to express solidarity with an extraordinary woman, a gifted lawyer and a person who was convicted for her political ideas and affiliations.

Show your love!

* William M. Kunstler, “The Emerging Police State,” Melbourne/New York: Ocean Press, 2004, p. 41.