Chelsea Manning sent to jail for refusing to testify in WikiLeaks case
Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning will be held in jail until she testifies before a grand jury or that grand jury is no longer operating, a federal judge in Alexandria ruled Friday.
Most of the hearing at which prosecutors argued for Manning to be held in contempt was sealed, but the court was open to the public for Judge Claude M. Hilton's ruling. "I've found you in contempt," Hilton said. He ordered her to custody immediately, "either until you purge yourself or the end of the life of the grand jury."
Manning was called to testify in an investigation into WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website she shared classified documents with back in 2010. Manning served seven years of a 35 year prison sentence for her leak before receiving a commutation from President Barack Obama.
Outside court before the hearing, Manning said she was prepared to go to jail. "These secret proceedings tend to favor the government," she said. "I'm always willing to explain things publicly."
Older article. Also at BBC, The Guardian, and Associated Press.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @03:51AM
Contempt of court is based on the premise that if a judge told you to do something, there is nothing to debate. However in compelling testimony to be given in a secret hearing, clearly that premise is is being overreached. The reason we don't do this in this country, is to prevent somebody from standing in the doorway with a blowtorch saying: "Now you remember that it went like this.... right?". The other issue, is that a secret grand jury made up of hand picked cronies can invent whatever testimony it wants regardless of what she says. She didn't say she wouldn't testify, she said she wouldn't testify in secret. The judges response should tell you that the persons demanding the grand jury have something to hide, or are looking to execute some miscarriage of justice.
With contempt of court, judges regard your ability to remember as being at their discretion. As there is no checks or balances on the refusal of habeas corpus to in/validate any declarations or accusations he may make, they have gotten away with it so far. No right to jury, no jurisdiction. It is that simple, and it goes all the way back to the British law that the Constitution derives from. By refusing to testify she is acting directly in defense of the 5th amendment. Which is certainly as much of an act of defending this country as splitting some dipshits wig in some shithole desert somewhere. It is an honorable behavior.
Really what is needed is a law that says: if civil litigation is brought against a judge, and it is found by a jury that contempt of court was used in an unlawful way, the judge has to serve the same amount of days in the clink as the guy he locked up. That would put a stop to this shit PDQ.