Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2019 5:22:22 GMT -5
... it can also mean making people talk when they don't want to!
Chelsea Manning's Lawyers Again Ask For Her Release, Say She'll Never 'Betray Her Principles'
Attorneys for Chelsea Manning on Friday have once again asked the court to release the activist and whistleblower from her confinement in Virginia on the basis that she cannot be coerced to testify in the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange.
“She is suffering physically and psychologically, and is at the time of this writing in the process of losing her home as a result of her present confinement,” the lawyers said. “She has made clear she prefers to become homeless rather than betray her principles. Her intransigence, at this point, is not reasonably in question.”
U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga ordered Manning to be confined again this month after she was briefly released when the Wikileaks grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia expired. Trenga also imposed a fine on Manning of $500 per day, a penalty that’s set to kick in next month. The fine will jump to $1,000 after 60 days.
“She is suffering physically and psychologically, and is at the time of this writing in the process of losing her home as a result of her present confinement,” the lawyers said. “She has made clear she prefers to become homeless rather than betray her principles. Her intransigence, at this point, is not reasonably in question.”
U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga ordered Manning to be confined again this month after she was briefly released when the Wikileaks grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia expired. Trenga also imposed a fine on Manning of $500 per day, a penalty that’s set to kick in next month. The fine will jump to $1,000 after 60 days.
Her lawyers said the court may impose fines in order to coerce a recalcitrant witness’s compliance, but not to punish disobedience with a court order. Coercive fines, they said, are usually applied only to corporations, which cannot be jailed.
Moreover, witnesses who are held in contempt typically are not both fined and imprisoned, the lawyers said.
There is no date set for when the judge will rule on Manning’s motion to reconsider sanctions.
There is no date set for when the judge will rule on Manning’s motion to reconsider sanctions.
It remains unclear why the grand jury in the Wikileaks case continues to exist. Assange has already been charged with conspiracy to commit a computer crime and, in a superseding indictment this month, with espionage against the United States.
“In 2019, the federal grand jury exists as a mockery of the institution that once stood against the whims of monarchs,” Manning wrote in a letter to Judge Trenga on Wednesday. “It undermines the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure, and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantees of due process. Today’s grand juries do not safeguard such fundamental rights, and they are easily subject to abuse.”
“The tradition of using political grand juries to jail political dissidents and activists is long,” she continued. “The concept of a grand jury in which prosecutors subpoena activists and jail them for refusing to comply with the subpoena stands in stark contrast to the institution contemplated in the Constitution.”
“In 2019, the federal grand jury exists as a mockery of the institution that once stood against the whims of monarchs,” Manning wrote in a letter to Judge Trenga on Wednesday. “It undermines the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure, and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantees of due process. Today’s grand juries do not safeguard such fundamental rights, and they are easily subject to abuse.”
“The tradition of using political grand juries to jail political dissidents and activists is long,” she continued. “The concept of a grand jury in which prosecutors subpoena activists and jail them for refusing to comply with the subpoena stands in stark contrast to the institution contemplated in the Constitution.”
