Skip to main content

Two thoughts (and only two) on the Bradley Manning conviction

1.  The judge had little or no choice in this verdict.  It was quite predictable.  "Jury nullification" is not an option for trial officers under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  In fact, I'd argue that the judge has been, so far, as lenient as it was possible to be, and sent a significant message in declining to find Manning guilty of providing aid to the enemy.

2. I can't figure out how to triangulate the public reaction to this verdict against the public reaction to the Zimmermann verdict.  In its own way the Manning trial outcome has the potential to be just as divisive as the Florida shooting, but the lines seem to fall much differently.  I've seen people who think Zimmermann was a hero both condemn and praise Manning; likewise with people who believe Zimmermann got away with murder.  Strangely, I find it a hopeful sign that we don't always divide along the same lines.

Comments

tom said…
When every issue divides a society along the same lines, you tend to get explosive situations like the middle east, northern Ireland, or the U.S Civil War.
Thomas L. Knapp said…
"In fact, I'd argue that the judge has been, so far, as lenient as it was possible to be"

Then you are batshit insane.

In her role as judge, Lind openly and flagrantly violated Articles 92, 98 and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, multiple times.

According to the law -- you know, that thing she was supposed to apply as judge -- the prosecution itself was illegal, as the Army detained Manning for FOUR TIMES the absolute, non-negotiable maximum time before arraignment.

According to the law, the prosecution doesn't get to call new non-rebuttal witnesses and present new evidence after both it and the defense have rested their cases.

According to the law, the prosecution doesn't get to change the charges (!) after closing arguments.

Stalin's pet judges would have blushed at the shit Lind pulled.

Her future career should start with disbarment, proceed to indictment, and end in Club Fed.

Popular posts from this blog

Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw

With apologies to Hube: dopey WNJ comments of the week

(Well, Hube, at least I'm pulling out Facebook comments and not poaching on your preserve in the Letters.) You will all remember the case this week of the photo of the young man posing with the .22LR squirrel rifle that his Dad got him for his birthday with resulted in Family Services and the local police attempting to search his house.  The story itself is a travesty since neither the father nor the boy had done anything remotely illegal (and check out the picture for how careful the son is being not to have his finger inside the trigger guard when the photo was taken). But the incident is chiefly important for revealing in the Comments Section--within Delaware--the fact that many backers of "common sense gun laws" really do have the elimination of 2nd Amendment rights and eventual outright confiscation of all privately held firearms as their objective: Let's run that by again: Elliot Jacobson says, This instance is not a case of a father bonding with h

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?