— The idictment of evil attorney Lynne Stewart for terrorist conspiracy drew the predictable response from the trial lawyers:
Attorney Accused of Passing Terrorist Messages (washingtonpost.com) — “As a defense lawyer now, you basically cannot talk to your clients in prison. If you have a securities fraud case . . . then you’re probably safe. If you’re in the Southern District of New York and there are people under indictment for these kind of [terrorism] cases, then you’re probably being watched,” he said. “It bodes terribly ill for our defense system.”
With spokesmen like this, trial lawyers need no enemies. It’s always been illegal for attorneys to join criminal conspiracies with their clients, it just wasn’t prosecuted before. You can tell how serious Ashcroft is about this case by his appearance on David Letterman last night.