Shira Scheindlin, judge in controversial case, to give law talk today

By Linda Myers

Shira Scheindlin, judge for the Southern District Court of New York, will speak at Cornell Law School, today, Sept. 26.

Scheindlin, who recently handed down controversial decisions in United States v. Awadallah, is a Cornell law graduate, J.D. '75. Her talk, "The Federal Judiciary and Sentencing in Criminal Cases," will be at 6:30 p.m. in Myron Taylor Hall's room G90, and it is free and open to the public.

The talk is sponsored by the Law School chapter of the American Constitution Society (ACS) and is part of a nationwide discussion hosted by ACS on the federal judiciary and criminal sentencing.

Soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks Osama Awadallah (no relation to Osama Bin Laden) was arrested as a material witness and was imprisoned in New York state, where he testified before a grand jury that he had met two of the hijackers 18 months before the attacks, but only recalled the name of one. After he admitted to writing in a classroom examination booklet the phrase, "One of the quietest people I have met is ... Khalid" -- the first name of the second hijacker he had described but couldn't name -- the government sought to try him for perjury and he remained incarcerated as a high security federal prisoner. In a ruling last April, Scheindlin dismissed the perjury charge and found that Awadallah's prolonged detention without criminal charges was based on misrepresentations and omissions by the government and could not be justified under existing law.

Attacked on the Fox TV network and criticized in the Wall Street Journal as "Osama's favorite judge," Scheindlin was defended by the New York County Lawyers' Association, which accused the WSJ editorial of "factual misrepresentation" and stated: "The obvious play on the fact that Mr. Awadallah's first name, a common one in the Muslim world, is the same as America's arch-enemy, deliberately insinuates that Judge Scheindlin has manifested some affinity for Osama Bin Laden. Such an insinuation is misleading and reckless in its disregard for truth." It also criticized a call for the judge's ouster by a Fox television host as "pernicious" and lacking both analysis and an explanation of the legal issues involved in her court ruling.

At her talk, Scheindlin will discuss federal sentencing guidelines, statutory mandatory minimums, the role of the judge in sentencing, and the relationship between sentencing and constitutional separation of powers.

ACS, which champions the protection of individual liberties under the constitution, is made up of law students and professors, attorneys, judges and government officials. For more information on the talk, contact Michael Bonafede at mcb52@cornell.edu.