Posted on 10/21/2006 10:52:18 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
October 21, 2006
Lawyer Convicted in Terror Case Lied on the Stand, a Juror Says
By JULIA PRESTON
He was known as Juror 8, for the jury box chair where he listened silently for more than six months as the convoluted evidence unfolded in the trial of Lynne F. Stewart, the radical defense lawyer accused of aiding Islamic terrorism.
The jurors argued behind closed doors in Federal District Court in Manhattan for another month before they finally agreed to convict Ms. Stewart on all five charges she faced for smuggling messages out of prison from her terrorist client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.
“We found what jurors called the smoking gun,” Juror 8 said in an interview. “Lynne Stewart knew full well that violence was going to be committed,” he said, after she publicized the sheik’s words. He said the jurors also concluded that she had lied in her testimony.
So on Monday, 20 months after the verdict, Juror 8 kept his eye on the television, waiting for news of her sentence. When he heard that Judge John G. Koeltl had reduced the 30 years sought by the government to 28 months in prison, Juror 8 said he was first disbelieving, then “vastly disappointed.”
He said the light sentence obscured facts the jurors had painstakingly linked together that tied Ms. Stewart to terrorism. He believes only the jurors understood their meaning in the complex case.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"The jurors’ mining of the evidence, he said, convinced them that Ms. Stewart was aware that one militant from Abdel Rahman’s organization in Egypt, the Islamic Group, planned to foment terror attacks using a message from the sheik that Ms. Stewart released.
Juror 8 said the jurors found that Mr. Taha had used the sheik’s words to recruit at least one Egyptian militant to start plotting an attack."
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She should have been convicted of treason and sentenced accordingly.
There was PLENTY of evidence that she was aware that her actions help terrorists plot attacks against Americans. The article gives a lot of details.
Can she practice again when she walks?
Someone who committed Treason against htis country lied? I find that hard to beleive (sarcasm)
I would hope that the government now indicts her for perjury and tries the case about 1500 miles away from the Al Qaeda judge that sat on the bench during this last travesty of justice.
where is the outrage?
People just go and accept this -- this will just encourage other terrorist sympathizers, since they will face virtually no punishment.
Of course we have no way of knowing, but the percentages (90+% in most polls)say that a professor from one of the prominent East Coast schools is probably a liberal by persuasion.
For him to come forward like this, if he is indeed a liberal, brings to mind that a liberal is someone who hasn't been mugged yet.
The surprise is that it's in the NYT. All power to Julia Preston.
What an embarassment. Lynne Stewart went to my college. But then, so did Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intel Committee
There was no excuse for such a light sentence.
I am a little surprised that the Times published this article, though, because I'm sure the odious Lynne Stewart is one of their golden girls. So to speak.
The judge's conduct in this case needs to be reviewed.
I don't think she was ever charged with treason. The government should open a new case against her.
I notice there is no actual quote of the juror saying that he "gained respect for the judge," which makes me wonder if the author of this piece just read that into his comments.
The juror insisted that the looming figure of Mr. bin Laden had no impact on the jurors, who were repeatedly instructed he had no role in the case.
“The judge told me he had no part, so he had no part,” Juror 8 said. “And 11 other people agreed. We did not go off reservation.”
This is interesting. The judge lied to the jurors by claiming that Osama Bin Laden "had no part" in the case:
Juror 8 said the jurors found that Mr. Taha had used the sheik’s words to recruit at least one Egyptian militant to start plotting an attack.
“She smuggled Taha’s message in,” Juror 8 said. “She smuggled Rahman’s reply out. She was told that violence would occur, and she had a second press conference to reinforce the first. No person who was opposed to violence would conduct themselves in that manner.”...
...Juror 8 said the militant, Rifai Taha, a fugitive convicted terrorist, emerged as a major and very chilling figure in the trial. Prosecutors showed a videotape of Mr. Taha sitting with Osama bin Laden somewhere in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks, calling for violence against Americans.
The definition for what constitutes "involvement" in a case are way to narrow for the American justice system to be anything but a sad and tragic joke.
Enough to make your blood boil . . .
Sure is BM, and then some.
People our vintage have really got to be cautious when attempting to digest this crap.
Because the way I see it things are only going to get crazier *&* crazier.
...nice, huh. ;^)
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