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Chelsea Manning to Be Released Early as Obama Commutes Sentence

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Melody Bot, Jan 18, 2017.

  1. Melody Bot

    Your friendly little forum bot. Staff Member

    This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply.

    President Obama has commuted Chelsea Manning’s prison sentence.


    President Obama on Tuesday commuted all but four months of the remaining prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the Army intelligence analyst convicted of a 2010 leak that revealed American military and diplomatic activities across the world, disrupted Mr. Obama’s administration and brought global prominence to WikiLeaks, the recipient of those disclosures.

     
  2. If someone could explain the logic of this decision to me, it would be greatly appreciated.
     
    Raku likes this.
  3. ekjohnson4

    Not Hydra

    Hm...
     
  4. Malatesta

    i may get better but we won't ever get well Prestigious

    depends how you mean and what your initial response is

    personally really really glad, she was high at-risk and being heavily mistreated
     
    Aaron Mook and Chris Prindle like this.
  5. I could be mistaken, but wasn't she in talks of being switched to a female-only prison?

    I just think the crime was a massive one, so I don't know what signal Obama is trying to send in terms of the seriousness of information leaks or other security-related crimes.
     
    Raku likes this.
  6. Obama's logic seems to be boiled down to: 7 years was long enough for the crime, more than most people get for similar things, she was being treated horrifically in prison, and commutation is more than anything described as an act of mercy.

    A good way of quickly saying it:

     
  7. Malatesta

    i may get better but we won't ever get well Prestigious

    the idea basically is she had already suffered enough for it to be representative of her actions, which Obama's administration still do not condone but believe the time's been served
     
    Aaron Mook and Chris Prindle like this.
  8. Junction183

    Newbie

    I'm curious which cases where people have done similar things that received less than 7 years prison time. In my opinion Chelsea's actions were an act of treason and may have cost American lives.
     
  9. Here:
    Had Manning been a civilian, she probably would have been sentenced to a few years in jail. However, the military justice system is a very different beast. (In 1970, Robert Sherrill wrote a book titled Military Justice Is to Justice as Military Music Is to Music.) As a recent study of military justice by the Congressional Research Service put it (italics added):

    In the [civilian] criminal law system, some basic objectives are to discover the truth, acquit the innocent without unnecessary delay or expense, punish the guilty proportionately with their crimes, and prevent and deter further crime, thereby providing for the public order. Military justice shares these objectives in part, but also serves to enhance discipline throughout the Armed Forces, serving the overall objective of providing an effective national defense.

    By that standard, a member of the U.S. armed forces who violates military law is to be punished to the max, regardless of its consequences. Under Army sentencing guidelines (which are enforced with wide variation), the judge could have put Manning away for 90 years; Army prosecutors urged her to do so for 60 years. Manning’s lawyers pleaded for 20 years. In context, then, the sentence—35 years, with possible parole in 10—seemed a compromise.
    35 years was an absurd sentence.
     
  10. aranea

    Trusted Prestigious

    How so? I'm genuinely curious. People say this a lot but don't care to elaborate beyond "well, releasing classified info".
     
  11. Leftandleaving

    I will be okay. everything Supporter

    This is extremely good news
     
    Aaron Mook likes this.
  12. Thank you. This explains it perfectly:)
     
    Aaron Mook likes this.
  13. I heard that the info included the details of a lot of undercover operations. A lot of people had to be pulled put of undercover immediately after the leak. If the situation had been handled slower or less tactfully, then yes, the leak could have cost lives.
     
  14. ConArdist

    Subgenres Should Die

    Doomsday commences Friday, but my new album is coming out! Who wants to party?
     
  15. Very, very happy this happened.