Over the Line

DEFENSE LAWYERS have been protesting the conviction of radical attorney Lynne Stewart, in a federal court in New York, on charges of aiding terrorism in her representation of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. "The purpose of this prosecution . . . was to send a message to lawyers who represent alleged terrorists that it's dangerous to do so," warned Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Stanley L. Cohen, an attorney for accused terrorists and militants, put it more bluntly: "I don't think that there's a political lawyer in this country who doesn't believe that the government has a plan to target the lawyers who do what we do and to silence us." It is true that the Bush administration, in fighting the war on terrorism, has often showed contempt for the important function defense lawyers play. But Ms. Stewart's case is not an example of this baleful tendency. Her conviction will chill defense work only to the extent that lawyers confuse defending terrorists with participating in their illegal activities.

Ms. Stewart undertook a public service in defending the blind sheik, spiritual leader of the Egyptian terrorist organization known as the Islamic Group. She then had an ethical duty to vigorously defend his legal interests, regardless of his guilt. But the government alleges -- and a jury agreed -- that she did far more than that. Since his imprisonment for conspiring to destroy landmarks around New York City, Mr. Abdel Rahman has been the subject of "special administrative measures" that bar him from communicating with the outside world save immediate family members and lawyers. The idea is to prevent him from directing a murderous criminal organization from his cell. As a condition of their access to him, his lawyers, including Ms. Stewart, had to agree not to facilitate communications with unauthorized people.

Ms. Stewart flagrantly helped Mr. Abdel Rahman circumvent these measures. She helped funnel communications between Islamic Group operatives and the sheik about whether to continue respecting a cease-fire the group had declared. Ms. Stewart distracted prison guards by talking in English while a translator read letters to Mr. Abdel Rahman in Arabic and did the same while the sheik dictated a response withdrawing support for the cessation of violence. This message was then passed on to other operatives. And Ms. Stewart later issued a public statement that the sheik no longer supported the cease-fire.

Ms. Stewart has argued that in releasing the statement, she was acting to keep her client's name on the world stage so as ultimately to secure his release. But facilitating terrorist communications has nothing to do with protecting a man's rights in the U.S. legal system, as other lawyers for the sheik recognized. It has to do with managing an organization devoted to violent revolution and killing innocent people. Even as he denounced her prosecution, Georgetown law professor David Cole acknowledged that Ms. Stewart crossed a line of propriety. But as legal ethics expert Steven Lubet put it, Ms. Stewart was "not even within sight of the line." The right to the assistance of counsel in defending against allegations of criminal conduct is not a right to assistance in engaging in that conduct.