World
Pollard Denied
Legal options lessening for jailed Israeli spy.
MATTHEW E. BERGER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Washington
here appear to be few legal
options left for Jonathan
Pollard.
A U.S. federal appeals court rejected
the former U.S. Navy intelligence ana-
lyst's claim that he had inadequate coun-
sel when he was sentenced to life in
prison in 1987 for spying for Israel. The
court denied his request to downgrade
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Protesters gather outside Israeli President
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his life sentence.
At the same time, the three-judge
panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia Circuit denied
Pollard's attorneys access to classified
information they say would help in their
attempt to win presidential clemency for
their client.
The rulings, which affirm decisions by
a U.S. District Court in 2003, leave
Pollard with little recourse but the U.S.
Supreme Court to change his fate.
Pollard's attorney, Eliot Lauer, said that
another option was to ask the entire
appeals court to hear the case.
The appeals hearing was the latest in
the battle to free Pollard, who was given
a life sentence after pleading guilty to
spying for Israel as part of a plea bargain
that the U.S. government did not
respect.
Pollard's attorneys and members of the
American Jewish community lobbied
hard for clemency during the Clinton
administration, as well as previous
administrations. Israel, which granted
Pollard citizenship in 1995, has also
raised the issue with successive American
administrations.
They argued that Pollard's life sen-
tence is unjust because he had pleaded
guilty and because it is harsher than the .
penalties given to convicted spies who
had worked for countries antagonistic to
the United States.
The court said that Pollard's claim of
inadequate counsel was untimely
because he knew the circumstances of
his claim before he filed it in 2000.
Motions can be filed up to a year after
sentencing or when new facts are discov-
ered.
"Pollard knew the facts; what he now
claims not to have known is the legal
significance of these facts," Judge David
Sentelle wrote for the court, which was
unanimous on the issue.
Pollard's attorney, Jacques
Semmelman, said in oral arguments that
a conflict of interest between Richard
Hibey, Pollard's original attorney, and
Hamilton Fox III, who filed a motion in
1990 seeking a withdrawal of Pollard's
guilty plea, prevented Fox from claiming
ineffective counsel.
"The conflict of interest is that Mr.
Fox could not bring himself to say any-
thing negative about Mr. Hibey,”
Semmelman said.
The new attorneys claim that Hibey
was ineffective because he did not appeal
after Pollard received a life sentence,
even though his client had pleaded
guilty and had cooperated with the U.S.
government.
Pollard's attorneys also want to see 40
pages of a declaration written in 1987
by the then-Secretary of State Caspar
Weinberger, which outlines his assess-
ment of Pollard's damage to U.S. inter-
ests. That declaration is believed to be
key to Pollard's long sentence, but the
court ruled that federal courts lack juris-
diction to review claims for access to
documents for clemency purposes.
It's unclear when and if Pollard's attor-
neys will appeal to the U.S. Supreme
Court. The court could hear either or
both of the two issues or choose not to
review the case, essentially affirming the
'decision.
Pollard, who is being held at Butner
Prison in North Carolina, is eligible for
parole, but his attorneys said he has not
sought a parole hearing because it would
be hard to argue for parole without the
classified information.
❑
7/28
2005
56