News Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years

When dealing with law, semantics are key to whether someone is found guilty or innocent.
It would be a trivial matter to prove, that he reasonably believed (expected or supposed) that his act would encourage or assist in the commission of a crime. His motivations have nothing to do with it, its what he reasonably expected to happen.

 

You are still making allegations about what he thought at the time, which is a lot harder to prove than allegations of what he did. Acts are observable, and hence provable. Thoughts aren't; you have to infer them from actions and statements.

So go on: how can you prove what he believed at the time?

 

Its not a matter of proving what he believed at the time, its a matter of him proving that he didn't believe his actions would have encourage or assist in the commission of a crime.
You would have to have the IQ of a rock to not think releasing 700,000 classified documents wouldn't have encourage or assist in the commission of a crime.

 

Not really sure I get either argument.

He was always getting a high sentence, wether it gets reduced on appeal or not is another matter entirely.

What he thought at the time is pure guess work unless you can read minds.

In the end of the day he broke the secrets act where each breach can result in prison time. 35 years for 1000s of classified documents.

He can get parole in 8 years if he's good.

 

He has, amongst others, his personal conversation with Lamo to back that up.

ORLY? And what crimes has it, in fact, encouraged or assisted? Not that logical an assumption then.

Meanwhile Manning's capacity for reasoned thought and action at the time could be challenged. Plenty of evidence to back that up too.

 

The UK serious crime act of 2007 doesn't need a crime to be committed, and operates on the premise of it being reasonable to believe.
The US military tribunal operate the same way we used to, and requires it to be proved beyond reasonable doubt.
So as i originally said good job he lives in the US as under UK law he would have been found guilty for encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence.

 

I agree, but our point of disagreement is that the allegation is that it is reasonable to believe that he believed his acts would encourage crime. That logic in itself can be challenged. But also, Manning's defense has plenty of evidence to argue that his reasoning was compromised at the time.

But yeah, the UK is a worse police state than the US.

 

He looked very ill in the last picture I saw of him. No need to guess why. But I do wonder if he will make it to 11 years inside.