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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChris Hedges: Legalizing Oppression
from truthdig:
Legalizing Oppression
Posted on Feb 9, 2014
By Chris Hedges
The lynching and disbarring of civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart, who because she has terminal cancer was recently released from prison after serving four years of a 10-year sentence, is a window into the collapse of the American legal system. Stewartwho has stood up to state power for more than three decades in order to give a voice to those whom authorities seek to crush, who has spent her life defending the poor and the marginalized, who wept in court when one of her clients was barred from presenting a credible defenseis everything a lawyer should be in an open society. But we no longer live in an open society. The persecution of Stewart is the persecution of us all.
Stewart, 74, is living with her husband in her sons house in New York City after being released from a Texas prison a month ago. Because she is disbarred she cannot perform any legal work. Cant even work in a law office, she said softly last week when I interviewed her at the Brooklyn home. I miss it so terribly. I liked it. I liked the work.
Her career as one of the countrys most renowned civil rights lawyers coincided with the fall of our legal system. She said that when she started practicing law in the 1970s it was a golden era in which a series of legal decisionsincluding rulings affecting police lineups and what information and evidence the government had to turn over to defendants on trialcreated a chance for a fair defense. But these legal advances were reversed in a string of court decisions that, especially after 9/11, made the state omnipotent. As citizens were stripped of power, she said, a death of the spirit of the bar occurred. Lawyers gave up, she said. They no longer saw defending people accused of crime as a calling, something that you did because you were answering a higher voice.
I dont want to make anything a kind of religious thing, it wasnt that, but you know, you defended people because they were up against the mightiest organism in the universe: the government of United States, whether they were state or federal, she said Thursday evening as we sat with her husband, Ralph Poynter, at her sons dining room table. .................................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/legalizing_oppression_201402091
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Chris Hedges: Legalizing Oppression (Original Post)
marmar
Feb 2014
OP
bemildred
(90,061 posts)1. KnR. nt
grntuscarora
(1,249 posts)2. K&R
nt
Scuba
(53,475 posts)3. Hey, if you're innocent you've nothing to worry about.
The government wouldn't charge you with a crime if you're not guilty.
sarcasm thingy here
marmar
(77,067 posts)4. No sarcasm thingy needed Scuba.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)5. Not for you marmar, but there's a bunch of DU members missing the sarcasm gene.
Solly Mack
(90,762 posts)6. K&R