Pollard’s lawyers appeal terms of release
Israel National News
Nov. 20, 2015
Lawyers for Jonathan Pollard, who was on Friday released from an American prison after over 30 years of being held on espionage charges, have appealed the terms of his release.
Under the terms of Pollard’s release, he was assigned a probation officer, who will approve any excursion beyond the immediate area of his residence.
He will likewise be forbidden from flying to Israel – and will even be forbidden from checking the internet.
Pollard’s lawyers argued in a letter released Friday that they the conditions of his parole are “unreasonable and unlawful” and said they would be challenging them in court.
“In granting release on parole, the Parole Commission followed the procedure mandated by the U.S. parole statute,” they said. “Under the statute, after serving 30 years of a life sentence, a prisoner is entitled to release on parole unless the Parole Commission finds either (a) that the prisoner has frequently and seriously violated the rules of the prison; or (b) that there is a reasonable probability that upon release, the prisoner will commit further crimes.
“With regard to the first statutory ground for denying parole, it is undisputed that Jonathan Pollard has been a model prisoner. There has never been any claim that parole should be denied based upon Mr. Pollard’s behavior in prison.
“As for the second statutory ground for denying parole, during the months leading up to Mr. Pollard’s July 2015 parole hearing, Mr. Pollard’s lawyers, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, were in contact with the United States Department of Justice to determine whether it would agree that it was not reasonably probable that Mr. Pollard would commit any further crimes upon release. No one had ever suggested that Mr. Pollard would engage in acts of violence; thus, the sole question for parole was whether the Department of Justice would claim Mr. Pollard was likely to reveal classified information – if any – that might still be in his head after 30 years,” the lawyers said.
The lawyers noted they had submitted a declaration from Robert “Bud” McFarlane, who served as U.S. National Security Advisor under President Ronald Reagan, and who was in office at the time of Pollard’s arrest in 1985, and which affirms that “I see no reason for concern that Mr. Pollard might still deliver classified information to someone. To the extent Mr. Pollard even recalls any classified information, it would date back 30 years or more, and would have no value to anyone today…. Classified information from 30 years ago is useless.”
The lawyers note that “[t]he notion that, having fought for and finally obtained his release after serving 30 years in prison, Mr. Pollard will now disclose stale 30-year old information to anyone is preposterous. Apart from the fact that the information is useless, disclosing it will result in Mr. Pollard’s swift return to prison to serve out his life sentence.
“Even more disturbingly, the conditions are illegal, as they violate a federal statute, federal regulations, and the Constitution, all of which strictly constrain the imposition of conditions on parolees. The monitoring and tracking conditions imposed on Mr. Pollard are most commonly imposed on pedophiles, stalkers and similarly dangerous felons who must be closely supervised at all times for the protection of their victims. There is no basis whatsoever to treat Mr. Pollard in that manner, and doing so is vindictive and cruel, as well as unlawful,” they continued.
Source:: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/203706#.Vk9-w3YrKUl
