Bradley Manning Is Guilty of "Aiding the Enemy" -- If the Enemy Is Democracy

Bslev, with all due respect, I have asked several direct questions which you have continued to avoid answering.
 This chain of comments began with an article about the tactics of both the prosecution and the defense. I expressed my opinion that I disagreed with both. I see the prosecution as avoiding, to the extent they can, any consideration that Manning's actions could be justified by over riding factors. The prosecution wants to prove what Manning has admitted plus additional charges that could send him to prison for life. It is their denial of mitigating factors and a dependence of arbitrary application of law regardless those factors that I think shows a weakness in their case but which apparently is being quite successful.
 My objection to the defense is that I see that Manning did, in fact, violate the law and his only legitimate defense, as opposed to a tactic of cutting his losses, is proving that he had justifiable and over-riding reason to do so. I will add now that I do not blame Manning one bit for backing away from a defense that says not guilty to all charges. He probably has listened to his lawyer and can see the writing on the wall and hopes by taking his lawyers advice to only have to stare at that wall for twenty years or so as opposed to the rest of his life.

Sorry, but I don’t see any way to continue without being repetitious. I brought up jury annulment as a way to show that it is recognized in U.S. law that a jury can over-ride a law if they think it is bad law or is a law that is being abused. I have worked the question of jury annulment several ways attempting to get a simple answer to a simple question but you have refused to respond in a way that actually answers that question. My simple reason, which should have been obvious for a long time now, has been to demonstrate that it is possible for a person to clearly, definitively, obviously, and demonstrably break a law and still be rightfully found innocent by a jury of his peers. The only debatable question within that premise is raised by the word 'rightfully’.  Juries can and occasionally do practice nullification of laws by returning verdicts of 'not guilty’ for persons who obviously did break the law. Sometimes this appears to be an obvious miscarriage of justice, [O.J.]  and sometimes, in my opinion, jury nullification rightfully serves justice.  It turns out that there is an ongoing debate over this issue with some strong opinions on both sides. The question is whether or not a jury should be able to rule not just on the facts of the particular case but also on the law itself, or more narrowly on a particular laws application in a particular case.
 Before asking again I will relate a true story which happens to be too old to have documentation online, at least that I could find, but there are quite a number of essentially similar cases.
 In 1969 or ‘70 I became acquainted with a Mexican American kid who was active in peace movements in and around my hometown in Texas. I think his main motivation was not just the ongoing war but that it got him laid a lot. Ah, the good ol’days, except for the parts that were not so good. Because I cannot link to specific information I will not say his common Hispanic surname name and only call him Robert.
 Robert got busted for a tiny, identifiable amount of pot found on the floor of his car. Lots of people who knew the nature of the local police force believed the pot was planted. I believed that was a fair bet but also knew that it could have legitimately been found, althoough it was also apparent that Robert was targeted and so the search might have been deemed illegal. Back in the good ol' days, that is. Robert was charged legally within the parameters of Texas drug laws. He had several things going against him both in criminal court and the court of public opinion. Though he was a native born American citizen, he was, seen by most folks with any influence as just another ‘Mexican’. He was, to those same folks, an unpatriotic dirty hippy draft dodging, anti-government, agitator. He was also fucking white girls. Robert was found guilty, very likely correctly based on the facts as presented to the jury, and was sentenced to life in prison for his one and only legal conviction up until that time. The same judge who passed that sentence turned loose, in the same week, an ex-cop who had been convicted of murder [In the first degree if I remember that part correctly] saying that it was a drunken mistake by a good man going through hard times and who would not pose a threat to the community in the future.
 If I had been on the jury and had been aware of the gross injustice of the sentence that would come down on Robert if convicted I would have had no problem justifying a not guilty verdict. Am I being too presumptuous to believe that if your son was in the very same situation that you would see jury nullification as a good thing in that case or would you have just said,”Sorry son,you did the crime now you must do the time, life in a cage is harsh but the law is the law. It's been nice knowing you”?
 I remember at the time discussing it with a good friend and when I asked if he would have stood for acquittal he said no, not if the facts were against him. I couldn’t then and I don’t now agree with that conclusion, but at the time I put down what I considered to be his flawed reasoning to the fact that we were both stoned. I hadn't participated in a crime deserving a life sentence though, I bought from a white guy.
 So, the point I am emphasizing is that strict determination of whether or not a law was broken does not always prove guilt of a kind that deserves punishment and sometimes the law is being used so punitively and/or so wrongly that even though the law was broken, a verdict of not guilty is justified to prevent a gross injustice being done..
 This conversation seems much like one I had with a Latter Day Saint missionary who was basing everything he said on a fundamentalist belief in the words of the Bible. When I said that the Bible might be a book of wisdom but that I did not accept the Bible in the way a fundamentalist does and that I did not believe it could be followed as an infallible guide to the word of God. His rebuttal was to quote a verse from the Bible proving me wrong.
 A much shorter version of this rambling response: I accept as a fact that Manning is guilty of breaking some laws. I believe that lawbreaking is sometimes justified. I know that people who agree with that do not all agree on when that is the case. I think some people are akin to Bible fundamentalists with regards to the law, they believe there is never a justifiable reason to break a law. I understand that a person could answer my following question with a 'yes' and still believe that Manning should be drawn and quartered. If you wish to convince me that the 'law' says Manning is guilty  of breaking the law you need argue no further. I assumed that from day one and have been convinced for a long time.
 All that said, could you/ would you, give an unambiguous answer to a simple question? It needn't take much time,  simple yes or no will suffice.

Do you believe jury nullification is ever justified. Not necessarily for Manning, but for anyone, ever.

 Doing a little reading hoping to find out I wasn't tallking out my ass I found the debate about jury nullification to be spirited and ongoing. Some may find the following to be as interesting as I did.

But nothing in this oath would forbid jurors from acquitting if they

are convinced—based solely on "the evidence"—that

the accused's actions were morally blameless and that

a conviction would be unjust. In such rare cases, no

jurors could be said to have decided a case "well and

truly" if they had to disregard their sense of justice to

convict.

http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/131jur.pdf

Here is Matt taibbi with  analysis and opinion.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/as-bradley-manning-t...