Bring Lynne Stewart Home UPDATE & Next Steps

This week there have been enormous developments in the worldwide campaign to gain compassionate release for imprisoned people’s lawyer Lynne Stewart. The wheels are beginning to turn. We must redouble all efforts!

Please click here to sign or re-sign the petition for compassionate release for Lynne Stewart.  Keep the pressure on! 

On Friday, April 26, the warden at FMC Carswell Federal Prison recommended that Lynne Stewart be granted compassionate release so that she can receive treatment for her metastasized Stage 4 breast cancer. The cancer has now spread to her lungs and back.

Gaining compassionate release for Lynne was thought to be impossible just weeks ago, when we helped to initiate this petition campaign with Lynne’s family. The warden's recommendation is the first crucial step in gaining Lynne’s release so that she can get urgently needed care.

A week later we heard more news from Ralph Poynter, Lynne Stewart’s spouse. Federal probation officers in New York had visited members of Lynne's family on May 3 to review the Brooklyn facilities where Lynne Stewart can live and be cared for while being treated at the family’s desired medical facility, the world-renowned Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

This review is another essential step. But there are several other steps before Lynne is home with us. 

If ever there was a time to push forward, ALL TOGETHER, this is the moment. 

The Petition for Compassionate Release must still go before the original sentencing judge, Judge John Koeltl, and elsewhere in the government bureaucracy.

The 12,000-plus signatures that you have already generated demanding compassionate release is the reason for this breakthrough. If there ever was a time to continue and/or join this fight, the time is now.

Ask all your friends and associates, all who have access to listserves, all organizations that can pass resolutions to take just a minute to sign NOW for Lynne.

Click here to sign or re-sign the petition 

Please be ON ALERT to pack the court in case Lynne suddenly has to appear in federal court in NYC in the coming days, when Judge Koeltl may make a final determination to decide this petition for compassionate release. We want to PACK THE COURTROOM and Foley Square to show our love and deep concern for Lynne. (The U.S. Court House is located 500 Pearl Street, just off Foley Square in Lower Manhattan.) 

Now more than ever, first-rate medical care is critical to save Lynne's life and to continue her battle for freedom.

Finally, please send donations payable to the LYNNE STEWART ORGANIZATION to: Lynne Stewart Organization, 1070 Dean Street, Brooklyn, New York 11216. See www.LynneStewart.org for regular updates.

We are including Lynne Stewart & Ralph Poynter’s message to all of us. It is a joyous greeting and a serious WARNING!

4/28/13, 5:55 p.m.: CARSWELL FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER

A worldwide embrace to all of the thousands of people who helped me! As my hero [Che Guevara] said, we are motivated by great feelings of love and compassion, and I am fortunate to be the beneficiary this time around.

To savor this victory, you all should know that the Carswell Prison authorities kept telling me, "It can't be done. You don't qualify. Why bother? Wait till you are closer to death!” To all of them I replied that I have been fighting battles like this all my life and that I would never quit. Then I had this white blood cell setback, making me super-vulnerable, and was quarantined for a week.

I was released on Friday to learn that indeed "the children had shouted" and the walls did “come a-tumblin' down!" I must say that I was in a state of bliss. Not just to win but to accomplish it in the time- honored method … We will organize the People and you dare not ignore us!! 

I owe an enormous debt to so many. This is the one we had to win, where the medical decision was made that compassionate release was warranted. That cannot be trifled with. BUT... we who have been out here struggling from the fifties onward know that the Government is masterful at Co-optation, at snatching victory and making it defeat. 

Please do not think that my struggle is WON. 

We have this fabulous win but we still have the D.C. National Bureau of Prisons (if there ever was a time to hold Obama's feet to the fire, this is it), and then their forwarding of the case to the Judge in New York for a final decision (yes, the same one that increased my original sentence from 28 months to 10 years!)  

So please, please, please do not let us rest on our laurels. Until my feet are planted like the Tree that grows in Brooklyn, and I am among my family, friends, and comrades and plunged back into the struggle once more, we must continue. Fight On!!

Click here to sign or re-sign the petition 

This petition can be signed several times. Each time you sign it many officials and major media outlets receive the message.

Please also write to Lynne with expressions of concern and wishes for strength and health, at : Lynne Stewart #53504-054 Federal Medical Center, Carswell PO Box 27137 Ft. Worth, TX 76127

For more information and latest updates, go to LynneStewart.org 

Sign the petition HERE for the Compassionate Release of Lynne Stewart