Thursday, February 10, 2005

Michael Ross is still alive.  I understand that he was back in New London Superior Court today and that competency and the conflict raised by his attorney were on the agenda.  As of this writing, I don't know the outcome or if some sort of outcome was even announced.  Perhaps we will learn a result by Friday morning.

In some respect, the fact that Ross is still alive might seem like a minor victory.  But I admit that I was confident that he would be killed on the occasion of his first date with death.  Others were more positive about the event, but I thought (I told the newspapers that "I feared") Ross would be executed.  He wasn't.  He still hasn't.  And perhaps he never will.  I perversely joked earlier this week that, while I don't represent and have not yet represented Michael Ross in any of his legal travails, I probably would be representing him two years from now as his legal avenues were still being followed.  Many a truth is said in jest, they say......

Enough of this writing from a blogger who has been less than diligent these past many months.  I best leave tonight as I do.... now.....  Until a later date.


9:15:43 PM    comment []  


I forgot to give the link to the article I read about the verdict.  Here it is:
 


9:05:02 PM    comment []  

Attorney Lynne Stewart convicted

Her name may not be familiar to you.  But this attorney and champion of the underdog and the undesirable criminal client was herself convicted today for allegedly helping "terrorists" by smuggling messages of violence from one of her imprisoned clients to terrorist disciples on the outside.  The client -- described as a radical Egyptian sheik -- Omar Abdel-Rahman, had associations with the hated (the understandably hated) Osama Bin Laden.  News accounts told how the government portrayed Bin Laden's presence in the case and in the courtroom.  Without question, in the climate of a criminal trial post-9/11, the spectre of Osama Bin Laden would deny anyone a fair shake in front of a jury.  No less (and even less so) an attorney with a client background like Stewart.

I can't say that I followed this trial closely, so I won't comment on the proof or the conclusion.  But it is a sad day when one of our own, when a lawyer who has been in the trenches and has fought with the government on so many levels, is convicted of a federal crime.  This is especially true when the acts about which the government complains were committed in the course of the attorney's representation of the client.

A lot has changed since the World Trade Center was attacked and toppled in 2001.  To be free, we must be careful that all of our actions against those that threaten us are properly directed.  If we aren't careful, if we aren't prudent, we could easily find ourselves on the pages of George Orwell's "1984" or a bad replication of the worse totalitarian state.  It wouldn't take much at this point, the Bush Administration doing all that it can to undermine the Bill of Rights and a free society for everyone.  Perhaps the Lynne Stewart verdict is merely one manifestation of where we are and, worse, where we are going.


9:02:42 PM    comment []