Here is the letter I sent. Note there was no guidance provided for Category and sub-category, so I chose “non-police” and “help with a Federal Agency”.
Dear President Obama:
I believe the terrible, draconian sentence given by the Justice Department to Lynne Stewart is unfair and wrong. It is both a harsh and an unusual punishment. Lynne Stewart is an admirable, decent, good woman who has improved the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people through her more than 30 years of selfless work on behalf of the poor and the oppressed.
I urge the white house to pardon Lynne Stewart and to back her legal efforts as a friend of the court as her case is taken to the Supreme Court.
I think it is an embarrassment to the country to give poor 70 year old cancer survivor Lynne Stewart a ten year sentence, in effect a death sentence.
Lynne Stewart never should have been convicted in the first place. There should never have been a trial. All that was necessary was to ban her from seeing her client.
Even in a country such as Iran or Cuba or some other bad country, not even a bad government such as those would give Lynne Stewart, at age 70, ten years in jail for simply calling a Reuters reporter.
Again, I urge the White House to support Lynne Stewart as her case goes to the Supreme Court, and better yet to pardon Lynne Stewart.
It is not right and and it is not fair. Her jury was high-jacked by a rogue juror who brow-beat the other jurors. The judge originally gave Lynne Stewart a 28 month sentence. It is absurd for that same judge to re-sentence her to 120 months due to a comment she made which he mis-interpreted.
The judge said he increased the sentence by a factor of 5 because Lynne Stewart said she could do a 24 month sentence standing on her head. That is not what she said. She said that her clients tell her that they, not her, can do 24 months standing on their head. What kind of country is this, that increases Lynne Stewart’s sentence from 24 months to 10 years because she relates something her clients tell her?
Please pardon Lynne Stewart and support her legal efforts.
RobertGloverJr