Lynne Stewart has long been known as an attorney who championed unpopular clients who she felt should be fairly represented in court. This includes Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, often referred to as the blind sheikh, who was convicted of conspiring to blow up the U.N. and other landmarks in New York City. In 2010, Lynne Stewart was sentenced to 10 years in prison for passing messages from the sheikh to his followers.
Now 73 years old, she is dying from cancer in a Texas prison. Last month, Lynne Stewart’s treating physician in the prison estimated her life expectancy is approximately 18 months. This came after the Federal Bureau of Prisons denied Stewart’s request for early release, a denial her lawyers are appealing and hope to address today in a hearing before her original sentencing judge, Judge John Koeltl.
Before we’re joined by one of her lawyers, along with Lynne Stewart’s husband and daughter, who is a doctor, I want to read from a letter who wrote to Judge—a letter that Lynne Stewart wrote to the judge that Democracy Now! obtained a copy of. Stewart wrote, in part, “I do not intend to go ‘gently into that good night’ as Dylan Thomas wrote. There is much to be done in this world. I do know that I do not want to die here in prison—a strange and loveless place. I want to be where all is familiar—in a word, home. … I have no grandiose plans—just good food, conversation, music. That is what I look forward to. And of course, my beloved husband Ralph—my hero and help, my heart, through all the last 50 years. I need him and his strength and love now to be close to me as I get ready for the nearing moments of transition and then rest. If you indeed represent the merciful hand of the law, as against, in this case, a heartless bureaucracy, do not punish me further. Grant me release and allow me to die in dignity.” That was what Lynne Stewart wrote to the judge who will hear arguments today in federal court for her compassionate release.
Lynne Stewart in 2009 talking:
I represented Sheikh Omar at trial—that was in 1995—along with Ramsey Clark and Abdeen Jabara. I was lead trial counsel. He was convicted in September of ’95, sentenced to a life prison plus a hundred years, or some sort—one of the usual outlandish sentences. We continued, all three of us, to visit him while he was in jail—he was a political client; that means that he is targeted by the government—and because it is so important to prisoners to be able to have access to their lawyers.
Sometime in 1998, I think maybe it was, they imposed severe restrictions on him. That is, his ability to communicate with the outside world, to have interviews, to be able to even call his family, was limited by something called special administrative measures. The lawyers were asked to sign on for these special administrative measures and warned that if these measures were not adhered to, they could indeed lose contact with their client—in other words, be removed from his case.
In 2000, I visited the sheikh, and he asked me to make a press release. This press release had to do with the current status of an organization that at that point was basically defunct, the Gama’a al-Islamiyya. And I agreed to do that. In May of—maybe it was later than that. Sometime in 2000, I made the press release.
Interestingly enough, we found out later that the Clinton administration, under Janet Reno, had the option to prosecute me, and they declined to do so, based on the notion that without lawyers like me or the late Bill Kunstler or many that I could name, the cause of justice is not well served. They need the gadflies.
So, at any rate, they made me sign onto the agreement again not to do this. They did not stop me from representing him. I continued to represent him.
And it was only after 9/11, in April of 2002, that John Ashcroft came to New York, announced the indictment of me, my paralegal and the interpreter for the case, on grounds of materially aiding a terrorist organization. One of the footnotes to the case, of course, is that Ashcroft also appeared on nationwide television with Letterman that night ballyhooing the great work of Bush’s Justice Department in indicting.
Lynne’s daughter Dr. Zenobia Brown talking:
She would probably continue with the same treatment she’s been getting in prison. I think the piece that most people are not sort of cognizant of is that at this stage of cancer there is no cure. So, basically, it is a battle for time. And at this point, she is losing that battle, and that is clear. That is why it was so shocking when the BOP denied her compassionate release based on really what was not the case. There were 200 pages of medical records that went into—that went up to Washington and that would appear that none of them were reviewed, that no specialist in palliative care or no one who has any prognostic background looked at a single document.
people facing life-limiting illness. So, just sort of looking through it, they literally made this decision based on a single physician’s comment that the patient was responding well. No doctor in this country is really trained to deal out justice. And basically, the entire case of whether my mother would be released or not was on a two-sentence letter from her treating oncologist. So, just the—sort of the injustice of that and the fact that there really was no sort of objective party looking at this data is—it really is mind-boggling.
2012 report by Human Rights Watch on compassionate release in U.S. federal prisons. Quote, “Although we do not know how many prisoners have asked the [Bureau of Prisons, or] BOP to make motions on their behalf—because the BOP does not keep such records—we do know the BOP rarely does so. The federal prison system houses over 218,000 prisoners, yet in 2011, the BOP filed only 30 motions for early release, and between January 1 and November 15, 2012, it filed 37. Since 1992, the annual average number of prisoners who received compassionate release has been less than two dozen. Compassionate release is conspicuous for its absence.”
The irony is shocking. Really, I mean, it almost is a no-brainer. The BOP has no interest in releasing prisoners. I mean, that’s not their business. Their business is sort of heads in the beds. So to put them in charge of deciding whether or not these cases even get presented is—I mean, there’s no one who would sort of support that that’s the way this should be done. And also, this sort of arbitrary increase from 12 months to 18 months, there’s no medical foundation for. There’s no sort of—research is not done on a 12- to 18-month basis, so that’s also completely arbitrary. And in mom’s case, basically, the physicians, who are visiting with her in Carswell every day, see her losing 20 pounds, supported her compassionate release, only to have it denied. The prison warden supported compassionate release. to sort of then have it denied at this higher level is just—it’s heinous, and it is cruel and unusual.
I think anyone who has battled cancer knows that just being treated for cancer outside of prison is cruel and unusual. It is very difficult. It is trying physically. It is trying emotionally. There are some basic things, like, for example, when she’s in prison and has sort of life-threatening low blood counts, sort of nothing is done. She has no place to go. There’s no recourse. There’s no one to call. There’s no one to treat her. So she could, as she has seen her cell mates die horrible deaths with no medical care—so the difference is vast, meaning, if she got a fever, we would take her to the emergency room, we would take her to a doctor. If she has pain, we will make sure she’s not—I mean, she has metastatic disease to the bone—make sure that she’s not having pain in the middle of the night; make sure that—she has, you know, pleural effusions, which is fluid on her lungs—make sure that she can breathe. You know, I mean, it’s so basic. I mean, it’s just humanitarian. We’re not talking about, you know, sort of wild and outrageous treatments. It’s just basic, compassionate care.
Lynne’s husband Ralph Poynter talking:
Lynne calls it a misstatement. I call it a total lie, because Lynne does nothing for herself. Everything is done for her. She sits in a bed. In a prison, you have to make your own bed. Lynne does not have to. She does not take long walks. The prison brings her food. Everything is done for her as she sits. And so, for them to say that she can take care of herself is just outrageous. And obviously she does not. She looks to have a walker. To walk around the visiting room is a chore. And, of course, in prison, they don’t like you to be close, and so we don’t walk, because she holds on to walk. And it’s—for them to make a statement like that, that she’s improving, and when we all know that her lungs are being clogged, this is dangerous, a dangerous situation, and the prison wants her dead. I don’t call them “prisons” anymore; I call them “death camps.”
Jill Shellow talking:
That the Bureau of Prisons failure to make the motion, failure to come to court and ask that her sentence be reduced is, in and of itself, a constitutional violation. It gives Judge Koeltl the authority, both that combined with—with the great habeas writ. He has the power to reduce her sentence or vacate her sentence. There are exceptional and compelling circumstances. That’s beyond doubt. The government—the United States attorney’s office doesn’t dispute that she’s dying. It doesn’t dispute that at this point her doctor says that she has less than 18 months to live. It doesn’t dispute that the warden and the doctors who have been caring for her at Carswell believe that she should be released. There is no excuse. None. And that’s the argument.
She had been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. She looks out. Her grandchildren are weeping there. She uses humor to comfort people. And seeing people grieving like that, as she was sentenced first to two-and-a-half years, she said something like, “Don’t worry. I can do it standing on my head.”
Ralph Poynter talking:
hat is a misstatement. What she had said, “As many of my clients have said to me when they received a sentence that was less than possible—possibly expected, ‘I can do that standing on my head.'” Now that’s a big difference than saying, “I can do that standing on my head.” And if you go back and review the tapes, it is very clear what she said. And she began by thanking the judge. And all of this has been skipped by the media, who has lied about what Lynne said.
Jill Shellow talking:
When Lynne appealed her conviction, the underlying conviction for the conduct, the government cross-appealed her sentence. The conviction was affirmed, and the sentence was vacated, with directions to Judge Koeltl, in no uncertain terms, that the court of appeals thought the 28 months was too lenient. Judge Koeltl then, following what he believed, I’m sure, to be the instructions of the court of appeals, sentenced her to 10 years. The only thing that changed between his first sentence and his second sentence was the statement that Ralph described and the court of appeals opinion. Nothing other than that changed. And that’s one of the issues that’s presently pending in the Supreme Court. Lynne’s—we filed a cert petition on Lynne’s behalf. It was filed earlier this year. It will be conferenced at the end of September. The solicitor general has opposed that, which is surprising only in that the solicitor general does not file very many oppositions. And that will be a question that hopefully the Supreme Court will address.
— source democracynow.org
Jill Shellow, one of the lead attorneys working on Lynne Stewart’s request for compassionate release.
Dr. Zenobia Brown, Lynne Stewart’s daughter, and a hospice and palliative care specialist, with a master’s in public health.
Ralph Poynter, Lynne Stewart’s husband of 50 years. He visits her regularly.