NOT MONOLITHIC, BUT STILL TERRORISM? 
Eastern District Judge Brian Cogan has refused to dismiss a terrorism case against a U.S. citizen working for a group that renounced its formerly violent opposition to the Iranian government but nonetheless is a designated foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. Zeinab Taleb-Jedi worked for the the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), which The New York Law Journal reports worked in some capacity with the U.S. military in Iraq. Upon her return to America from Iraq, where she’d been working as a translator for the group, Taleb-Jedi was arrested and charged with providing material support to the group in 2006. “Foreign relations generally and specifically during a time of war are not black and white, and the PMOI need not be viewed as a monolithic entity,” Cogan wrote. “It is perfectly permissible for the military to forge alliances with those in the PMOI with whom it wants to deal, while the Government deters through prosecution other individuals, particularly United States citizens, from rendering material support to the organization on their own.”

THE 'CZAR OF HOMELESS SHELTERS' GETS A PROMOTION
The New York Post challenges Governor Paterson’s appointment of controversial Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Helen Freedman to the Appellate Division. The tabloid calls her the “self-appointed czar of homeless shelters” for her role in a 25-year battle by Legal Aid to protect the rights of homeless people. “The appointment, which isn’t subject to State Senate confirmation, raises doubts about the governor’s judgment,” writes the Post. “During that quarter-century [presiding over shelter litigation] the irrepressibly activist Freedman made three things quite plain from the bench: New York must supply immediate housing to anyone who asks for it; said housing had better meet her exacting, expensive standards; if City Hall objects, City Hall can go to hell.” Click here to read Judicial Reports's coverage of Justice Freedman's judicial record, her role in the homeless shelter case, and the Post's decade-old crusade against her.

IS ANTI-ATTORNEY PRO-PLAINTIFF? 
The Daily News, meanwhile, praises Southern District Judge Alvin Hellerstein’s recent ruling in a 9/11 damages case. Hellerstein voided a lucrative settlement for the families of four Pentagon victims who decided to sue the airlines rather than join the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Hellerstein rejected the payouts — some $28 million — after learning that the Maryland firm of Azrael, Gann & Franz was going to collect 25 percent, or $7.125 million. Regarding the firm, the judge wrote: “Azrael’s entire strategy seems to have been to coast on the work of others, and to wait for last position before entering into any meaningful settlement discussions with respect to his clients.” The News calls the decision pro-plaintiff.

MEET 'EM, GREET 'EM, AND PLEAD 'EM
Former Court of Appeals Judge Joseph Bellacosa, meanwhile, pens an editorial in Newsday advocating the creation of a statewide Independent Public Defense Commission, a watchdog group earlier supported by Chief Judge Judith Kaye’s Commission on the Future of Indigent Defense Services, which found the State’s public defense system to be fragmented, unaccountable, underfunded, and in “ongoing crisis.” Implementing the group would be the first step of a proposed State takeover of indigent defense services. Writes Bellacosa: “These may be lean and hard fiscal times, but my 30 years in various roles in the judicial branch taught me there are smart ways to work through road bumps. And the cost is measured in more than dollars. It’s paid every day by poor people incarcerated because of their inability to gain even temporary freedom so as to mount an effective defense to charges against them. A system of ‘meet ‘em, greet ‘em and plead ‘em’ — a description from Louisiana, that’s also applicable to New York, where overworked defense attorneys actually don't even meet clients before disposition hearings — is a recipe for wrongful convictions and a pervasive lessening of respect for the rule of law.”

FORMER SOUTHERN DISTRICT CHIEF JUDGE DIES AT 85
The New York Times writes a respectful obituary of retired Judge Charles L. Brieant, Jr., who died last Sunday at the age of 85. In his 36 years at the bench, Brieant oversaw more than 15,000 cases – many of them, according to the Times, “controversial and sometimes unusual” – and wrote more than 700 opinions. In 1999, he ruled that a Westchester School district had violated third-graders right to freedom of religion by assigning them to create images of the Hindu god Ganesha, and in 2001, he declared that information shared among members of Alcoholics Anonymous is privileged in the same way as conversations held during Catholic confession or under similar religion-oriented circumstances. Brieant was appointed by Nixon in 1971 and retired last year. The cause of his death was cancer, the Times said.