AFTER Close of Evidence, Judge in Manning Trial Allows Feds to Change Charges

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Two years ago, Army PFC Bradley Manning was charged with five counts of stealing government property, in violation of federal statute 18 U.S.C. 641. He faces 21 total charges for providing WikiLeaks with classified information at the court martial entering its final stage. After the Government rested its case against PFC Manning, defense lawyer David Coombs detailed how the evidence presented did not support those five 18 U.S.C. 641 charges. He appealed to military judge Col. Denise Lind to dismiss them outright; however, she let them stand. Shockingly, she then stepped away from her role as the “finder of fact,” and into a clearly partisan role by allowing the Government to significantly alter its charges on July 24, 2013–long after all legal arguments had been made.

“Because all of these critical ‘clarifications’ are coming after eight weeks of testimony, and because these offenses carry with them 50 years of potential imprisonment, and because the Defense was actually misled by the Charge Sheet, the Defense requests that this Court declare a mistrial as to the section 641 offenses,” declared Coombs.

This move by Judge Lind allowed the prosecution to switch its theory, alleging now that Manning stole “portion[s] of” databases instead of the entire databases themselves. The change is for the Iraq and Afghan War Logs and the Global Address List. The evidence clearly shows that Manning downloaded Iraq and Afghanistan Significant Activity reports (SigActs), not the entire Combined Information Data Network Exchange (CIDNE) databases, which included far more – and far more sensitive – documents.

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{Manning's attorney argues,} Now, after the close of evidence, the Court has grafted onto the Charge Sheet the word “information” – something that the Defense did not know it had to defend against until after it had cross-examined Government witnesses and after it had called its own witnesses. In short, the Defense did not know of the case to meet until 24 July 2013, almost two months into the trial, and the day before closing arguments. The Defense is now left to hope that the Government has not presented enough evidence to prove a charge that the Defense did not actually defend against and it does not believe the Government actually charged. . . . If the Defense had known that when the Government charged databases, it really meant information, the Defense would have defended this case very differently.

Much more at http://www.bradleymanning.org/featured/manning-judge-alters-charges-to-assist-govt-ahead-of-verdict .