Kangaroo Court Rejects Pollard Appeal

Justice4JP Release - July 22, 2005

In an ongoing perversion of justice, US federal appeals court today rejected Jonathan Pollard's latest legal effort to challenge the life sentence he received for passing vital information to Israel while working as an intelligence analyst for the Navy. The decision, issued by what was essentially a kangaroo court, came as no surprise.

The merits of Pollard's case which were supposed to have been heard at oral arguments in Washington in March of this year were, in fact, never heard. At the hearing an openly biased, and hostile panel of judges, led by Judge David Sentelle actively prevented the merits from being heard. Sentelle openly derided Pollard's legal efforts, invoking one of the oldest anti-Semitic devices known, and proclaiming that the problem with Pollard is that he thinks he is unique. [See the full report.] So it comes as no surprise that in his formal decision today, Sentelle and his panel rejected both of Jonathan Pollard's motions.

Jonathan Pollard is serving the longest harshest sentence in the history of the US for the one count of passing classified information to an ally with which he was charged. The median sentence for such an offense is 2 to 4 years. Pollard is currently serving his 20th year of a life sentence with no end in sight.

The court's contention that Pollard filed too late for relief from his grossly disproportionate sentence is spurious at best, and contested by both the ACLU and a host of the best legal minds in the US who have participated in "Friend of the Court" legal briefs. As well, the court's contention that since Pollard knew the facts of his previous attorneys' actions, he should also have known the judicial consequences, is ludicrous! Moreover the court's insistence on upholding the banning of Pollard's attorneys from seeing their own client's sentencing docket is reminiscent of the worst characteristics of the former soviet system of justice. The judges' claim that Pollard's attorneys have no "need to know" what is in the very documents which are keeping Pollard chained to an unlimited life sentence, strains credulity to the limit.

Asked for a response to the court's decision, Esther and Jonathan Pollard limited their comments to saying that the court's actions, both at oral arguments and currently in its decision, are merely a continuation of the corruption of justice which has characterized this case from its inception. The US legal system, they said, which purports to be fair and unbiased is so steeped in politics, that the law means nothing. The Pollards concluded by saying that the politically-driven nature of the court's decision today does not deserve to be dignified with any further response.

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