As the sentencing phase in the court martial of Bradley Manning continues, a military judge has ruled that his maximum possible prison sentence will be reduced to 90 years.
From Reuters:
A U.S. military judge reduced potential prison time for Private First Class Bradley Manning to 90 years from 136 years on Tuesday by ruling that some sentences for leaking secret files to WikiLeaks should be merged.
Court-martial Judge Colonel Denise Lind convicted Manning, 25, last week on 19 criminal counts, including espionage and theft, for providing more than 700,000 secret files to WikiLeaks in the largest unauthorized release of secret data in U.S. history.
Lind ruled that some counts resulted from the same offenses and should be merged to avoid “an unreasonable multiplication of charges.”
The sentencing phase is much like a trial within a trial. It began just after Manning’s conviction and it is expected to last until at least the end of the week.
Prosecutors continue to contend that Manning’s leaks to Wikileaks harmed US interests and jeopardized the lives of informants. Both sides will present evidence and call witnesses to testify during the remainder of the sentencing phase.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Going after Bradley Manning is going after the wrong person!
I’d like to know the name of the putz who left the keys to this data in Manning’s lap?
And, it makes me glad that Ed Snowden is in Russia, which beats by miles what our incompetent military officials can do!
I don’t have a problem with going after Manning… but WTF were they thinking allowing personnel to carry digital media/devices into a secure area? That’s just inviting abuse.
Well, from my experience in the Navy, the security areas are pretty much on the honor system regarding carrying stuff in and out. And if you don’t belong inside and if you deliver often enough to such areas, you will sometimes find the doors wide open with no one around.
Give him 30 days bad time and put him in charge of the NSA.
I’d be curious to see what charged were consolidated to account for the 46 difference in the maximum sentence. From my own perspective, I don’t consider Manning to be any sort of “whistleblower” and he should get the maximum 90 years in prison where he will hopefully die closer to age 29 than age 119.
Only 90 years? We’re coddling criminals.
Lind is the same one that put Col Lakin in prison…
he ought to be facing 6-8 147 grain 7.62 FMJBT’s in the chest cavity. he’s a disgrace to the uniform.
Somehow I think General George Patton would have had a tough time in today’s military.
Yep, they’ve taken all the fun out of war.
90 years.
That sounds about right.
Nah I think he will get somewhere in the range of 10 to 40 years incarceration.
In this case any sentence is more about “deterrence” than anything else, a message has to be sent to other people contemplating turning over secret materials like Manning did.
What the Manning supporters don’t seem to “get” is that Manning doesn’t have the right to take these kinds of actions on behalf of all of us because he doesn’t speak for all of us. He’s not a “whistle blower.”
Salami slicing the charges to get them down to making paper airplanes out of Top Secret documents.