Disbarred Lawyer Lynne Stewart Argues Limiting Instructions Overwhelmed Jurors
A federal appeals court will hear arguments tomorrow in the case of disbarred lawyer Lynne Stewart, convicted of giving material support to terrorists for helping an imprisoned sheik pass messages to his followers.
Stewart is seeking to overturn her sentence, while prosecutors are arguing her 28-month jail term is too lenient, the New York Sun reports. The government’s argument could be undermined by recent Supreme Court decisions giving judges more leeway in setting sentences.
Stewart argues in her brief (PDF) that her conviction should be overturned because unfair evidence was introduced at trial, and her actions were protected by the First Amendment. The document says the court issued 750 limiting instructions to jurors regarding prejudicial evidence, “exceed[ing] any threshold that a jury could reasonably follow.”
“This case represents a classic example of the government’s repeated insistence on attempting to force a square peg into a round hole: assembling a cluster of non-criminal conduct–mostly speech protected by the First Amendment–and contriving a series of insufficient and unfounded charges alleging ‘material support’ for terrorism, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and false statements,” the brief says.
