Manning refusing to testify at grand jury probing WikiLeaks
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I would agree that Manning got treated far too harshly, and the commutation (pardon?) of her sentence by Obama is a rather high-level recognition of that opinion. But of all the institutions we have, some of which seem somewhat necessary for the continued functioning of society, the courts have held up relatively well in these times of partisan breakdown of norms. And I say that even though I have a list of verdicts I disagree with that is probably longer than yours.
Please try to consider a case that is reversed from your political point of view. Say a soldier who committed war crimes and, after serving their sentence, refuses to testify against their partners. Would you still grant them a right to refuse testimony?
Do you still say it's fine practice, because it's warcrimes? Who then would decide what topic is worthy of jailing people for refusal of cooperation?
This is the problem. You can't base this on an opinion, you'd easily find people thinking war crimes are less harmful than exposing army secrets.
I'd like to be judged in a setting that does not make me afraid of judges political views. The law should leave as little wiggle room for interpretarion as possible while maintaining sensibility.
Who died because of Wikileaks?
Who dies in cases of a war crime?
Other than asking them, there is no moral way to compel someone to testify if they do not want to speak. Jailing them repeatedly one question at a time is clearly abusive.
edit - this isn't difficult ethically. Unless you construct some imminent scenario (puppy trapped down well, etc.), you are locking someone up purely to know more. They aren't themselves depriving you directly of anything other than their perspective on events.
I believe this statement is where they tried to delineate between "a number of countries" and this instance but I'm not the OC, so I can't speak for them; however, that's the way that I'm reading it.
If someone could just decline subpoenas then we would lost rule of law.
I think it’s worth pointing out that there are checks on judges issuing subpoenas and it’s not done arbitrarily.
Other judges. This is why appeals and petitions to higher courts exist.
One egregious example is (today is the aniversary) 1985 bombing of MOVE:
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,141842,...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE
What are the checks on refusal to prosecute? Are there even any? One might find it more apppealing to cooperate with a justice system that at least tries to do its job wrt people who police the public.
I'm not entirely sure I buy that. It does sound an awful lot like collective ass-covering. But I do try to take into account that prominent, widely-noted failures do not necessarily invalidate a system that functions reasonably well most days.
There’s also public records of petitions brought up against motions. So if I disagree with an injunction, I have legal recourse in the court above the one issuing an order.
In my opinion, such a belief is extremely dangerous for a society, even if I suppose that it is shared by most US citizens, who grew up believing that they live in a "free" country, where they should trust justice.
Many years ago, USA advertised itself to the world as a champion of "human rights".
In my opinion, the most important "human right" is to be free to refuse to answer to any question, in any context, including during a testimony.
I do not know if there exists at least a country where this right is recognized, but this just prove how abusive are most state constitutions and laws.
Unlike most of you, I know very well the importance of this right, because I was born and raised in a country which was governed by a gang of thieves and murderers, who were installed in power by the Russian invaders.
Where the thieves make the laws and where the main purpose of the "law enforcement" is to prevent any attempt of resistance against the government and their servants, who share the spoils, do you believe that it is right if anyone who refuses to testify can be severely punished ?
About testimony being required in a "democratic society", unfortunately nothing guarantees that a society that is democratic now will remain democratic tomorrow.
After 1990, it seemed that democracy will improve in most of the world, but it did not happen so. While im many formerly communist countries there were modest improvements, during the last 30 years the western countries and especially USA have become each year more and more like the communist countries from before 1990.
This has happened not only in the many new abusive laws and in the more and more incompetent governments, but also in the economy, where every year brings more major merges & acquisitions, increasing the power of monopolies.
There was a single important difference between the "socialist" economies and the "capitalist" economies. In the socialist economies there were only monopolies. Everyone can see the results.
I don’t see how market system (socialism v capitalism) matters in this sense because rule of law is essential for democratic society.
Our first amendment guarantees a right to speak. It also grants the right to not speak. You're saying its acceptable to deprive someone if that right because you want their information.
Also the grand jury is only partly about Assange, whom they already know they won't get extradited from UK. It's also about engineering a perjury trap to punish Manning for a few more decades. She has no reason to trust the "justice" system and she might prefer contempt to the likely alternative.
It's clear when someone - anyone - regardless of nationality is being abused for political reasons. Would you want to spend the rest of your life in either of their situations?
For something you did once?
For something that benefitted millions of people?
I'm not saying they're clear of any responsibility and shouldn't have been punished, but this is beyond anything reasonable.
The problem with that is that not everyone comes up with the same answer. Maybe most do in a majority of cases, but many times the answers diverge. Which is why we have to codify the expectations so even if you believe that action XYZ is OK, you are on notice that society has agreed and published that it's not (or vice versa).
Forcing testimony, via subpoena or otherwise, is as old as courts are. The Fifth Amendment says: "... nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself", which implies that they can be compelled to be a witness against others.
For my part, there is no such case.
There is no case where I would feel "that person should not receive a defense" but I do feel Manning should not have been prosecuted.
(And I'm generally pro-military, until they try to hide the truth from the American people.)
* Ecuador ends Assange's asylum
* British police raid the Ecuadorian embassy and seize Assange
* Assange is held in prison
* US begin extradition papers
* Swedish rape trial is revived
* Grand jury opened into Wikileaks
It just shows you how the machine of bureaucracy can move fast nationally and internationally when there is blood in the water.
Why not go to the jury, repeat previous statements, answer any question she's comfortable with and go with the tried-and-tested "I don't recall" for everything else? Or plead self incrimination if there is a risk?
This must have occurred to everyone involved. There isn't any reason to go to risk jail rather than answer a few questions.
Heroes don't play dumb, heroes do the right thing, make a statement, send the message ... and she is a hero, not someone trying to cover her ass.
On the other hand, whatever she do, she's screwed, her future in such legal and power system is not bright anyways. So why not trying to be "die as a hero" then, it's not likely she would "survive" without "selling out" anyways?
She's decided to not play that game. To not serve as an accomplice in the US Government's case against Assange.
I don't know why you think there's nothing heroic about remaining silent under intense government intimidation. You can come up with a counterexample very trivially -- in the civil rights movement, if you had witnessed a black person going into a "whites-only" bathroom then it would've been far more courageous to refuse to act as a witness than it would be to tell the truth.
There is also a long history of resistance to grand juries among anarchist activists, as a policy of refusing to give evidence to the government and law enforcement organizations: http://grandjuryresistance.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_grand_jury_resisters https://earthfirstjournal.org/prisoners/grand-jury-resistanc...
Because of being a principled person and doing the right thing? If anything Manning so far has shown to be pretty consistent in that respect.
Furthermore, she already has the right not to self-incriminate. So if a question came her way that would require her to implicate herself in a crime, she could plead the 5th.
Manning really isn't in any legal jeopardy here, except for refusing to testify. She has a personal objection to testifying, which is her right, but the remedy to that is being held in contempt until she changes her mind or the grand jury concludes.
I agree with her points, but she's stubborn. I highly doubt that any judge could understand the reasons of her behaviour: if you spend most of your work time slavishly applying laws, regulations, .. legislated by someone else, it's not in your mindset.
It would be really much more simple an pragmatic to give them the spectacle of the grand jury. She could even answer with something such as "I need to follow back after consulting with my lawyers".
Her previous conviction (and rules against double jeopardy) actually somewhat weaken her position, because she can no longer invoke the 5th amendment.
Edit: sorry for elucidating the actual legal basis. It seems to have been mistaken as an argument as to wether Manning deserves jail or not.
You could make a case for coercive detention but her treatment during her detention for refusing to testify at the previous grand jury was excessively cruel.
In case you missed it: she was still undergoing after-care from her surgery last year. Her lawyers made a case that the detention facility had neither the means nor the qualifications to assist her and that failing to do so could cause permanent injury and significant complications (with bad hygiene also presenting a significant infection risk). The judge agreed with the US marshals that the facility would in fact be equipped to provide this. That turned out to be false. Additionally she was kept in solitary confinement again for 28 days until she literally threw up.
The treatment of Chelsea Manning can only be described as cruel and excessive, especially if you consider that this is already how she was treated during her incarceration. Prolonged solitary confinement for weeks is a form of torture and causes permanent mental harm and trauma.
She wasn't detained for some violent crime. She was detained for refusing to provide another testimony in a secret court on issues she has already addressed and was already convicted for.
Grand juries aren't criminal trials. Grand juries are dragnets used to generate accusations that can be used to find something to justify an investigation with.
Even if you think grand juries aren't blatantly oppressive you have to admit that the damage that resulted from her punishment from refusing to testify on the previous grand jury far exceeded the stated punishment (i.e. detention, not corporeal punishment or torture) and that there's no reason to believe she will be treated any more favorably this time (or the next).
If you argue that solitary confinement isn't torture because it doesn't involve physical violence, I would at least ask you to watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ZfPYRkEGk
EDIT: If you argue that grand juries are perfectly fine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_juries_in_the_United_Sta...
> According to the American Bar Association (ABA), the grand jury has come under increasing criticism for being a mere "rubber stamp" for the prosecution without adequate procedural safeguards. Critics argue that the grand jury has largely lost its historic role as an independent bulwark protecting citizens from unfounded accusations by the government. Grand juries provide little protection to accused suspects and are much more useful to prosecutors. Grand juries have such broad subpoena power that they can investigate alleged crimes very thoroughly and often assist the prosecutor in his or her job. Grand juries sometimes compel witnesses to testify without the presence of their attorneys. Evidence uncovered during the grand jury investigation can be used by the prosecutor in a later trial. Grand jurors also often lack the ability and knowledge to judge sophisticated cases and complicated federal laws. This puts them at the mercy of very well trained and experienced federal prosecutors. Grand jurors often hear only the prosecutor's side of the case and are usually persuaded by them. Grand juries almost always indict people on the prosecutor's recommendation. A chief judge of New York State's highest court, Sol Wachtler, once said that grand juries were so pliable that a prosecutor could get a grand jury to "indict a ham sandwich." And William J. Campbell, a former federal district judge in Chicago, noted: "[T]oday, the grand jury is the total captive of the prosecutor who, if he is candid, will concede that he can indict anybody, at any time, for almost anything, before any grand jury."
In other words: grand juries forego almost all of the restrictions of due process. The US and Liberia are the only two countries in the world that have grand juries and haven't gotten rid of them yet.
If grand juries have become problematic, or if prison conditions are terrible, or if police forces are institutionally racists one needs to argue for specific remedies for these problems.
A wholesale rejection of the rule of law for these weaknesses will not lead to a magical place of justice, but to further decline. Especially when it's facilitated by a healthy dose of motivated reasoning.
This is a bad thing
What isn't fine is that she is being tortured and that she is knowingly put in a situation of not being provided the level of medical care she needs. This isn't a consequence of her contempt. This is because the judge listened to her medical requirements and decided the detention facility could meet them while being fully aware that that isn't the case.
Even if you think that solitary confinement is not torture, the judge knowingly and needlessly put her at significant risk of infection and medical complications. The detention facility then additionally put her in solitary confinement and treated her like a high risk prisoner.
As for "rejection of the rule of law": yes, grand juries are part of the US legal system. But something being legal doesn't mean it's just or that it is as it should be. Until a few decades ago, racial segregation was part of the rule of law in the US. Almost everything the nazi government did in Germany was part of the rule of law in Germany at the time. Rejecting unjust laws or institutions is not a rejection of "the rule of law" as a whole. Grand juries have been replaced with more adequate instruments in most other countries and in the US are abused to subvert the standards regular investigations are bound to. Protesting grand juries or demanding their abolition doesn't "reject the rule of law", it's the exact opposite: it demands better laws and a more just application of those laws.
Thanks for the clarification, I'm not a lawyer.