US citizenship and UK citizenship are not mutually exclusive, although the double taxation situation may be undesirable.
4 Likes
Just look at it!
(With jaw dropped; what else can one do?)
14 Likes
You make Grand Juries sound like something out of The Empire in the Star Wars universe. I’m confused. Are they not:
Something that have always existed in our legal system, essentially (5th amendment?)
Made up of a group of our peer citizens, who get to decide whether to prosecute, instead of the prosecutor and their staff directly?
I understand that they can and are used improperly at times. Sometimes judges make poor decisions — should we not have any judges?
Is it their secretive nature? I feel like I could probably find a good number of examples as to how this can be a good thing, in some circumstances.
2 Likes
I’m an anarcho-communist. There is nothing you can say to me that will make me think that Grand juries are acceptable. They go against my beliefs that have only grown stronger over the last decade. Compelled speech in a secret court is something that should never happen.
12 Likes
OK, I think this is a useful clarification. You don’t believe in many or any of the laws that are part of our social structure. Which is your prerogative. But it’s a pretty biased position, I think it’s fair to say. Your views don’t represent the median or the mean of popular opinion, in other words.
Hi NickyG, are you employed by boingboing? Are you in charge of or moderate this bbs? b/c “BBS Captain”
1 Like
Nope, that’s just a title one can earn based on how many years they’ve been on the board. I believe different ones open up annually, and you can choose to select one (or not) that you’ve earned for display in your posts on your profile page.
There’s nothing particularly specific to Grand Juries involved in how Manning has ended up jailed. She’s refused to comply with a subpoena. A court order, in order to coerce people to comply with court orders the courts here can jail and fine people. If it was a civil court, or a regular jury trial or any other sort of subpoena, or a court order to mow your lawn, or one to say stop racial profiling in the sheriff’s department you control. The court can hold you till you comply.
How?
World wide the approach tends to be jailing people or fining them to compel compliance. I dunno the specifics in Canada but pretty sure there’s a stick to go with the carrot up there. As nice as the Canadian people are I’d be willing to bet some one has said “no” at some point.
Grand juries are called for in the constitution. A few brave people “not following it” isn’t how constitutional amendments are made. That said their format is not even addressed in the constitution, they just roll on common law and the legal precedents and laws that have been passed since this country was founded. We have pretty much as free a hand as we’d like to repair them.
Grand Juries have serious issues. But I do not think Manning’s approach is in anyway working. She and her lawyers are badly misrepresenting what Grand Juries are, and what they’re for. Obscuring what the very real problems with them are, for the sake of I’m not even sure what they’re pushing. One of their major issues is the particular way in which grand jury subpoenas end round the 5th amendment. But they’ve zeroed in on the immunity aspect. Which is a Supreme Court imposed limitation on those subpoenas designed to protect 5th amendment rights. That’s a serious issue with Grand Juries, what limitations exist seem to be insufficient. But “not following it” and sitting in jail doesn’t impact the situation. Challenging the subpoena in court does, that’s how we ended up with the immunity protections that go with those subpoenas. Manning is a horrible test case for that sort of thing. As her 5th amendment rights in this regard are limited since she’s already been tried, convicted, and served a sentence for the actions she’s being asked to testify about. And thus the 5th amendment doesn’t apply as freely as it would to some one who hasn’t already been incriminated.
Grand Juries are fundamentally investigative in nature. They’re sealed, and much of the evidence from them (specifically testimony) is inadmissible in court for that reason. Aside from the problems that would arise from having the person being investigated, directly involved and aware of the details of how they’re being investigated. If a grand jury were to find that a crime had not been committed, and find that a person was not criminally liable. Then the testimony there could be used to publicly smear them, or to prejudice other court proceedings against them if Grand Juries were public and their records were admissible. Imagine if testimony given by some one who thinks you murdered your land lords could be admitted at trial after its already been proven you didn’t do that, carrying all the weight of an official court record and sworn testimony, but without the opportunity to cross examine because its a transcript.
There’s also the 5th amendment problem. Since grand juries can compel testimony in a way that potentially violates 5th amendment protections the non-public non-admissible nature of them helps preserve those rights.
Frankly the secrecy exists to protect the rights of those investigated or testifying. It doesn’t neccisarily always work that way, just like any other aspect of our justice system. But that isn’t automatically a reason to discard this aspect.
And they aren’t so much secret as sealed. There’s a normal court record and anything involving them can be released by order of a judge.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t problems with Grand Juries, but they’re sealed for a reason.
3 Likes
I can’t applaud Manning’s actions without a better understanding of her rationale for not testifying.
She has already been convicted of these crimes and served her time. She cannot be re-convicted for them. She has no Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination - and she isn’t being asked about her own actions, anyway.
And the gravity of the inquiry is extreme: Manning is being asked to testify about WikiLeaks, which, as we know from the Mueller Report, actively cooperated with the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election - a crime for which the entire nation is suffering.
By refusing to testify, she is withholding evidence that the government could use to prosecute criminals and protect the country from further attacks. As best I can tell, her sole reason for not wanting to testify is that she doesn’t want to. So I don’t really much difference between her behavior and Don Jr.'s, who also deserves to be in prison for numerous criminal acts - including contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena.
The main difference is that whereas the Trumps violating the law to enrich and empower themselves and to protect themselves from incrimination, Manning’s motives seem to be… spite, I guess? I don’t understand.
4 Likes
She does against other crimes that may have been committed as part of the actions she’s been asked to testify about. In a normal court proceeding, or congressional hearing she could freely invoke the 5th amendment. Since there is no standard or “checking” to see if its valid. You don’t have prove you might incriminate yourself to invoke the 5th. So anything that doesn’t directly run into a double jeopardy protection, you good.
Thing is. There’s no indication Manning might have committed other crimes she might still be liable for, and there’s very little reason to believe she actually would invoke the 5th amendment. Her refusal to testify seems to boil down to “grand juries bad”. Its a really unclear activist action, publicly the stand seems to be that she won’t testify because it possible for 5th amendment rights to be violated through this process. Not because hers are impacted at all (cause they don’t seem to be). Her people are mostly making inaccurate statements about what’s happening and I’m not even sure what their goal is. Though the subset of the internet that seems to take this all at face value. Having just realized grand juries are a thing, and just rolling on the description they’re getting through Manning, seem to have gone with a “ban Grand Juries” read.
And good luck with that. I hear constitutional amendments are really easy to pull off. And there’s absolutely no negative consequences from repealing the 5th amendment.
That does beg the question of why she doesn’t want to testify, though. There would not have been a subpoena in the first place if she was willing. She’s not at risk of additional prosecution, and from what I understand she’s only being asked to repeat and elaborate on testimony she’s already given. It’s possible she still thinks of Assange and Wikileaks as legit activists who didn’t manipulate her and throw her under the bus. But like I said she’s already testified about this shit, in a more admissible public court.
3 Likes
Hey, leave NickyG alone!
strangefriendbb, BBS Captain.
1 Like
Nearly everything is biased. Unbiased opinions are nearly impossible.
That doesn’t mean that they are wrong. You can argue the merits of my beliefs if you want, but saying that they aren’t popular doesn’t prove anything other than they aren’t popular.
7 Likes
Thanks! Maybe we should pretend we’re moderators – is there a rule against that? 
No, but in a fundamental way, it does say that the system we have is what our democracy wants – even if that’s not what you individually want. If you think the best mechanism to change the laws that our democracy operates by is for people like Manning to take a “noble stand” and then go to jail, again, that’s your prerogative. I don’t happen to think it’s particularly effective.
9 Likes
So the fact that those were for a completely separate set of circumstances has no bearing on the situation? Were they all protesting Grand Juries or something? Again, we are talking about a basic aspect of the American legal system that’s been in place since basically the beginning.
Grand Juries are not new. They are made up of citizen peers, not members of the prosecutor’s office or government agency. They’re not in violation, it appears, of other aspects of our law – as other laws can sometimes be, and the protest of which is yes, noble.
Now, I happen to think that what Manning did was wrong. The mechanism of the mass leak via Wikileaks was, in my opinion, worse than how Snowden went about his leaks. So fundamentally, I don’t see how violating a basic provision of our legal system, in defense of something I think was wrong, is a noble thing to do.
I simultaneously think that aspects of the way Manning have been treated over the years are horrible and wrong, and Obama was right to commute her original sentence. I guess I have a more nuanced view about things than some.
It’s the same in that was breaking what they viewed as an unjust law.
It wasn’t too long ago the segregation was a basic aspect of the American legal system… things can change.
Well, that’s naturally going to color your view here.
Wow… I guess the rest of us are just two-dimensional thinkers…
11 Likes
Thanks for the clarification. I asked b/c the title gave me the impression that you were posting on behalf of boingboing.
And let me just add, I don’t need a lecture about protest. I’ve been involved in direct action protests, and have been attacked by riot police during peaceful protest. I don’t wear it like some kind of badge, but let me just tell you, it’s ridiculous to imply that a person who doesn’t support what Manning is doing here is akin to someone who, say, wouldn’t support peaceful protest against genuinely despicable laws that indeed do violate other more core aspects of our legal system.
Are you taking debate cues from Ben Shapiro, like I saw in that BBC interview post? Where the host must be a raging leftist, because he didn’t agree with Shapiro? Ha.
Okay man. You’re the only realist here… rest of us are clearly not in your league or worthy of your consideration as equals…
Have fun.
6 Likes
