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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAFTER Close of Evidence, Judge in Manning Trial Allows Feds to Change Charges
Because all of these critical clarifications are coming after eight weeks of testimony, and because these offenses carry with them 50 years of potential imprisonment, and because the Defense was actually misled by the Charge Sheet, the Defense requests that this Court declare a mistrial as to the section 641 offenses, declared Coombs.
This move by Judge Lind allowed the prosecution to switch its theory, alleging now that Manning stole portion[s] of databases instead of the entire databases themselves. The change is for the Iraq and Afghan War Logs and the Global Address List. The evidence clearly shows that Manning downloaded Iraq and Afghanistan Significant Activity reports (SigActs), not the entire Combined Information Data Network Exchange (CIDNE) databases, which included far more and far more sensitive documents.
* * * * *
{Manning's attorney argues,} Now, after the close of evidence, the Court has grafted onto the Charge Sheet the word information something that the Defense did not know it had to defend against until after it had cross-examined Government witnesses and after it had called its own witnesses. In short, the Defense did not know of the case to meet until 24 July 2013, almost two months into the trial, and the day before closing arguments. The Defense is now left to hope that the Government has not presented enough evidence to prove a charge that the Defense did not actually defend against and it does not believe the Government actually charged. . . . If the Defense had known that when the Government charged databases, it really meant information, the Defense would have defended this case very differently.
Much more at http://www.bradleymanning.org/featured/manning-judge-alters-charges-to-assist-govt-ahead-of-verdict .
Divernan
(15,480 posts)You won't see this kind of crap portrayed on some flag-waving tee-vee show like JAG!
And I make this comment as a retired attorney & someone who taught trial advocacy for several years.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)Unabashed kangaroo court.
If he's so obviously guilty, why do they need to cheat to win?
People like Snowden (and us) would be well warned to not be anywhere in reach of these people if we want to do some serious truth telling.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)I'm embarrassed to be an American with crap like this going on.
DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)...and sentenced to life in prison, solitary confinement.
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
― Gloria Steinem
blackspade
(10,056 posts)A shameful mis-carriage of justice.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)asylum elsewhere.
What a travesty of justice.
And the War Criminals have been sanitized, and walk free as if they were 'elder statesment' receiving praise form the man we supported with the 'hope' that some justice would be done for the victims of those criminals.
Land of the Not-So-Free-Anymore, Home of the Fearful.
Catherina
(35,568 posts)felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)Yes--whistleblowers are the enemies of a corrupt system, because their crimes cannot stand up to public scrutiny.
How much $$$$$ is being spent in public relations to assassinate their characters?
totodeinhere
(13,058 posts)There is not a snowball's chance in hell that Snowden would get a fair trial regardless of what Eric Holder says. He has no choice but to seek exile.
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)had good sense to get the hell out....as sad as that is.
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)bbgrunt
(5,281 posts)davidn3600
(6,342 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Not like justice means anything.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)From top to bottom it's nothing but a sham system of enforced preference.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)One set of rules for the One Percent, and for those in power playing puppet to those interests.
And a totally different set of rules for everyone else.
struggle4progress
(118,295 posts)Coombs here is merely putting on record every possible objection he can imagine for the purposes of appeal: "Holy shit, your Honor! The defense is just entirely dumbstruck to learn that Mr Manning is now accused of stealing information!" That won't fly anywhere IMO
The valuation argument is also very weak: I have shown elsewhere that Manning cannot have spent as much as 30 seconds per document reading the documents he released, and even if on appeal a Court accepts the defense view that "the cost of production of records is the time it takes for someone to enter the records onto a database," it would be reasonable to assume the documents were not produced more quickly than Manning could have read them (if he had read them) -- but 700K+ documents produced at 30 seconds/document at the 2009 minimum wage of $7.25/hr values the records at about $42000, which exceeds the $1000 value the government must establish
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)I thought everything he took was digitized, and probably transmitted to Wikileaks through a memory stick(s).
struggle4progress
(118,295 posts)a credit card number, card security code, card expiration date, cardholder's name, and cardholder's address, I have actually taken something of value from that person, because the ability to use the card securely depends on a certain secrecy regarding these data
Similarly, if Manning illegitimately provides documents, containing names of anti-Taliban informants in Afghanistan, to a person who releases the documents without redaction -- with the view "Well, they're informants. So if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it" -- then something of value has been taken, even more so if the Taliban studies the "documents .. for information to help them find and punish" the informers
al bupp
(2,179 posts)And well said, it is!
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Wikileaks vetted it. I don't know that I have heard of anyone being killed as a result of the information that WL went and released. I had heard that almost everything they released was from completed operations - so that would make it difficult to have it end up getting somebody hurt or killed.
But there was a lot of embarrassment all around, for people in our diplomatic corps. And then of course, that disgusting video of our tanks gunning people down.
Meanwhile, IIRC, Cheney let it slip to Novak that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative, and people did die as a result of that disclosure. Neither Cheney or Novak were ever so much as rebuked.
dsc
(52,162 posts)I might spend a huge amount of time engaging in making a table, but if I suck at making tables, then the table would still not be worth a whole heck of a lot. Also the government worker would have been paid no matter what the government worker did.
struggle4progress
(118,295 posts)at as little as 2 mills ($0.002) each, they'd clear the hurdle for bulk release. Presumably, there's a general consensus that diplomatic dispatches are worth on average more than 2/10 of a cent, since otherwise nobody would bother to write them, read them, or craft international treaties protecting them
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Why?
Because shut up, that's why!
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Very authoritarian and disgusting. I'd call it un-American, but it's more of the same old, same old.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)AzDar
(14,023 posts)Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)I don't think he will get the death penalty, though.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)What the fuck can you even say anymore.
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)kick