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Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

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Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#71

Post by lotharbot »

andrelaszlo wrote: post #62
rayiner wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is well-taken in the abstract, but I don't think it applies here. This is one of those cases where the defense must make the case complicated, because otherwise they lose. There is no dispute that Manning actually did most of the things she is accused of doing. I don't think she's contending that it was someone else who leaked those classified materials. The defense is in a position of arguing that, despit…

So basically the point is that it doesn't apply for cases where you need a complicated defense? To me this sounds close to saying that there is the law of the common person - where you are sent to rot in jail if you break the rules, and the law of the people who are wealthy enough to pay for complicated defense strategies. I'm not trying to build a straw man here, just trying to figure out where the difference in our…

> "it doesn't apply for cases where you need a complicated defense?"

More like, it doesn't apply for cases where your defense is "I totally did it, but I'm not guilty because..."

in such a circumstance, you're essentially hoping to convince a judge or jury that your law-breaking was OK, which is significantly more difficult and requires significantly more research than if you merely needed to convince the jury that you hadn't broken the law.

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#72

Post by yAnonymous »

wtbob wrote: post #63

It's remarkable that this has so many points. Why would so many be keen to contribute to the defense of someone who violated his oath and betrayed his country? He wasn't a whistleblower: there are processes in place for whistleblowing, and there are inspectors general who would love to get a good case of misconduct to work on, and he never availed himself of them. He pled guilty at trial, and received a fair sentence…

>there are processes in place for whistleblowing

...that have been shown to be inadequate several times.

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#73

Post by anon3_ »

icebraining wrote: post #65
anon3_ wrote: post #53

A legal defense? He admitted to breaking the law. He is a traitor who has endangered lives. If you want to talk about people's rights - what about the rights of the identities he leaked? Where was there trial? I don't see much sympathy for them.

A legal defense? He admitted to breaking the law. So people who confess don't deserve legal representation? Really? Even if she is a traitor, even they have a right to a legal representation in any civilised place. If you want to talk about people's rights - what about the rights of the identities he leaked? Where was there trial? I don't see much sympathy for them. Well, maybe if you posted the stories of the traged…

> So people who confess don't deserve legal representation? Really?

Sure, but money doesn't change the facts.

After a confession - the reality of the outcome changes.

> Well, maybe if you posted the stories of the tragedies that happened to them due to the leak there would be some sympathy. Where are they?

There full names were leaked. Security for them has been compromised. Maybe they don't go to the news about it, they're private individuals.

Bradley Manning seems to have a lot of free defense already. Not a lot of people defending the facts. He's confessed.

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#74

Post by rayiner »

andrelaszlo wrote: post #62
rayiner wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is well-taken in the abstract, but I don't think it applies here. This is one of those cases where the defense must make the case complicated, because otherwise they lose. There is no dispute that Manning actually did most of the things she is accused of doing. I don't think she's contending that it was someone else who leaked those classified materials. The defense is in a position of arguing that, despit…

So basically the point is that it doesn't apply for cases where you need a complicated defense? To me this sounds close to saying that there is the law of the common person - where you are sent to rot in jail if you break the rules, and the law of the people who are wealthy enough to pay for complicated defense strategies. I'm not trying to build a straw man here, just trying to figure out where the difference in our…

The question is, how do you make the system more fair? One way to make it more fair is to make it cheaper, and the way to do that is to reduce its complexity. But what does a less complex system look like?

Consider that most of our criminal laws have a "mens rea" (i.e. mental state) requirement in addition to the "actus reus" (i.e. culpable conduct). Cases would be a lot cheaper to prosecute and defend without those mental state elements. It's very time consuming, and therefore expensive, to litigate the question of what someone was thinking when they took certain actions. Did Manning leak that information? Was that information classified? If so, she's guilty. No need to spend lots of time and money arguing about what she was thinking or what motivated her to leak the information.

What you're talking about is a slightly different issue--who should bear the cost of allowing ordinary people to mount complicated and expensive legal defenses? That's outside the scope of what I'm talking about above.

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#75

Post by glass- »

wtbob wrote: post #69
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would so many be keen to contribute to the defense of someone who violated his oath and betrayed his country? He did? He exposed traitors. Funny how the narrative has been forcefed.

> He exposed traitors. Words mean things. In the United States, 'treason' is 'levying war against [the United States], or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort' (Constitution, Article III, Section 3). Whom did Manning reveal to be levying war against the United States? Whom did he reveal to adhere to our enemies, giving them aid and comfort? No-one. He didn't expose a single traitor.

So what you're saying is, in the United States "treason" is defined so that a helicopter gunner who murders journalists and unarmed civilians is a hero while the person who exposes this war crime is a traitor.

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#77

Post by wtbob »

glass- wrote: post #75
wtbob wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He exposed traitors. Words mean things. In the United States, 'treason' is 'levying war against [the United States], or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort' (Constitution, Article III, Section 3). Whom did Manning reveal to be levying war against the United States? Whom did he reveal to adhere to our enemies, giving them aid and comfort? No-one. He didn't expose a single traitor.

So what you're saying is, in the United States "treason" is defined so that a helicopter gunner who murders journalists and unarmed civilians is a hero while the person who exposes this war crime is a traitor.

> So what you're saying is, in the United States "treason" is defined so that a helicopter gunner who murders journalists and unarmed civilians is a hero while the person who exposes this war crime is a traitor.

No, what I'm saying is that murdering journalists and unarmed civilians is not treason, because…it's not.

Now, was the specific act you referred to a war crime, or a case of mistaken identification, or legitimate action against an armed group or individual within a group, or something else? Beats me. It's not my job to decide. Nor was it Manning's job to decide, nor to leak that information because he didn't like the decision of those whose job it was to decide.

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#79

Post by jessaustin »

transfire wrote: post #61

So I have a question. How does a human being defend themselves from being turned into a woman, if their captors drug them and torture them in such a way that it makes them want to become a woman? I find it very hard to believe that the U.S. Government will pay for sex change meds and procedures for a convicted traitor, when I can't even get them to buy me an aspirin.

It would be an interesting awful power to have, but I have to think that such a power would have had more "terror value" against extremely sexist Arab extremists than against random E-4s who are considering leaking some war porn to wikileaks. Why dump Osama in the ocean when you can just convince her she's a woman? All her former allies will reconsider their terrorist activities.

By all accounts, however, Manning's gender issue was present before enlisting, and certainly before she had access to classified materials.

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#80

Post by roel_v »

sambeau wrote: post #31
humanrebar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can this be considered normal? It's not acceptable, but nobody has any better ideas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_aid A better idea is common throughout the world.

Please show me one country where there is 'legal aid' to the tune of 200k where the legal case is basically 'yeah so I totally did what I was charged with, law is totally clear but I should still receive a lesser sentence because '.

Look, I'm fine with people advocating through the judicial process, but all things considered, of all people who are 'disadvantaged' in their legal proceedings and should 'deserving' of receiving government-sponsored legal aid (because there already is legal aid in this case, to the tune of ), this case's (and defendant's) scorecard looks pretty weak.

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