Stewart Verdict: Not So Complicated After All

While those who were on the other side of the bench actually liked her, what Lynne Stewart did was beyond the pale, and she rightfully deserved the verdict rendered. One person who had very close contact with her for a long period of time was the prosecutor on the Sheik Rahman case, Andrew McCarthy. He wrote:

Unlike many "activist" lawyers for whom the very notion of negotiating with the government is treasonous to what passes for their belief systems, Lynne was eminently reasonable and practical. She was open-minded about agreements ("stipulations" in the lexicon of litigators) that would narrow the case down to the matters that were actually in dispute. When she gave her word on something, she honored it — she never acted as if she thought one was at liberty to be false when dealing with the enemy.

One might think this was just commonsense rather than ethics. Lawyers, after all, are well aware of the often heavy price to be paid with the court if they are caught being dishonest. But I never thought this was the case with Lynne. I always had the sense that, even though I was for her present purposes the embodiment of the enemy, it mattered to her what I thought about her personal morality. In point of fact, I thought it was crazy quilt. I couldn't square the lawyer who so amiably conducted herself within the rules with the rebel who so ostentatiously sought to supplant the rules. All I knew, though, was that when she made a representation to me within the four-corners of a very long and combative trial, I thought I could take it to the bank. In twenty years, I have known too many adversaries about whom that could not be said.

Perhaps that's why I can feel justice but no joy is seeing her brought low. The worst part, for me, is the revelation that lying to the government was at the core of her crimes. In order to get into the jailhouse, she gave her word that she needed access to the Sheikh for one purpose, viz., to provide legal assistance, and then willfully carried out a far different purpose: viz., to enable Abdel Rahman to continue influencing the barbaric Egyptian terror organization which assassinated President Anwar Sadat for making peace with Israel, sought President Hosni Mubarak's murder, savagely slaughtered nearly 60 tourists in Luxor as an extortionate demand for the Sheikh's release, and has sedulously busied itself toward toppling the secular government for a quarter century.

These were bold-faced, nefarious lies. To the profession of lawyering, they should be seen as lies of the most despicable kind. For Stewart later claimed that her mendacity was excusable as a part of zealously representing a client. What she did, however, formed no part of what an attorney does.

For that reason, much of what is being said by defense lawyers in the wake of her conviction is welcome — and much, regrettably, is ridiculous. Being a defense lawyer for an accused person, even the most universally reviled accused person, is a most honorable and necessary endeavor in any society based on the rule of law. In the eyes of the trial court, a defendant stands innocent of charges until a jury finds otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the constitutional mission of defense counsel to ensure, with all their considerable skill and passion, that this accused gets the full benefit of every advantage and every doubt to which our system entitles him.

But that is to say, every advantage and every doubt within the rules. As some of New York City's most distinguished defense professionals explained to the Times after Stewart's conviction, there are lines between proper advocacy and misconduct, and they are well known. Here, Lynne was so far over them that, to be blunt, it is insulting for her and her allies to suggest otherwise. Yet, they thoughtlessly cavil about a Justice Department witch-hunt against lawyers who take on the defense of the most repulsive criminals and terrorists. It's blatant nonsense — and they know better.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees counsel to an "accused." When Abdel Rahman was actually an accused, from 1993 until 1996, he was the recipient of exquisite due process — including three lawyers and publicly-subsidized legal and investigative assistance. The government never came close to interfering in any of this. After he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the succeeding three years brought Abdel Rahman's appeals to the court of appeals and the Supreme Court. Again, numerous lawyers convened with "his holiness" as needed, and they filed voluminous briefs on his behalf. The appeals were rejected. At that point, his conviction was final. He was no longer, in any sense, an accused. He was no longer presumed innocent. He was a duly convicted terrorist who had a unique, authoritative stature among America's enemies.

Nonetheless, in our generous system, he was still permitted access to counsel (although not a right to have the public pay for it). For a time, those lawyers were empowered file what's called a "collateral attack" if they could come up with some argument that Abdel Rahman's fundamental rights had been violated during the trial. They never did that. They could also have challenged the conditions of his confinement, but to do so would have been specious — this ward, with his many maladies, is among the most conscientiously cared for. Beyond that, the Sheikh didn't need legal services anymore.

Because he is evil, what he needed and wanted were co-conspirators to help him stay relevant in the high councils of jihadist terror. That's what Lynne Stewart agreed to be. That's not lawyer-work. And that's what the government interfered with. For attorneys currently representing accused terrorists to pretend that the Stewart case forebodes ill for their ability to function as traditional defense counsel is hollow posturing.

Ironically, the Lynne Stewart I knew expressed no such reservations. Once, in a break in the action, I found myself in conversation with her, us both leaning on the rail along the jury box. I don't remember now exactly what precipitated it, but we were talking about how cases get settled and whether this one ever would. She pointed into the jury box — all empty seats at the time, but her gesture had me imagining our diligent jurors sitting there — and she said she had faith that the best thing to do was to get the dispute into the hands of "these good people" and let them do the job we had chosen them to do. In all those months, I never thought she had an argument that would actually persuade those good people to see things her way. But the sentiment could not have been more right, and the way she expressed it could not have seemed more sincere.

Ten years later, that's how I prefer to remember her. I would see or hear from her from time-to-time after the jury convicted Abdel Rahman, and it was always the same: friendly, gracious, never a hint of raging against the machine, even though she was the public personification of rage and I an enthusiastic proponent of the machine.

There is something wrong with Lynne's brain. Obviously, she loves being a darling of the loony Left — a Left so loony it now makes common cause with theocratic, homo-phobic, misogynistic psycho-killers, since, after all, they too hate America. Nestled among this element, her humanity synapse disengages, such that she can spout about faraway terrorist kidnapping victims and other unknown civilians as legitimate targets with all the contemplative depth of a dinner companion asking you to pass the salt.

But she is not without humanity. What has happened to her here is very far from a tragedy — a tragedy is when someone unwittingly crosses the path of Abdel Rahman's ilk and is ruthlessly murdered for the great offense of being an American, or a Jew, or a Christian, or anything other than an Islamic militant. This is what Lynne Stewart promoted, and for that she must pay dearly. At 65, it may mean she pays with the rest of her life. Many will understandably celebrate that. I will pray she perceives that she has done enormous harm, and that the real civil rights she might have honored are those of the innocent victims of terror.