[GVIrish]

This has nothing to do with vindictiveness. Simply put, if you refuse to testify in court, you can be held in jail for contempt of court. Manning was offered an immunity deal but decided she didn't believe in the concept of a subpoena, so she chose jail instead.

She could have walked out of jail at any time had she chosen to testify. In accordance with the law, she has been released because the grand jury has concluded.

One can argue whether someone can/should be compelled to testify, but Manning was not singled out for extra punishment here.

[sloum]

I disagree with the premise of your comment GVirish.

> she didn't believe in the concept of a subpoena, so she chose jail instead

That is not the case. As clearly stated bboth in the linked article and by her legal team. She is happy to testify in a public hearing (which I agree is the proper place), but not in a closed door meeting away from democratic due process monitored by the citizenry of the country.

[GVIrish]

Forgive me if I mischaracterized her objections but previously I saw her quoted as being against the concept of being forced to testify.

And ultimately grand jury proceedings are non-public and they are a key part of our judicial process. To say it's not part of democratic due process is incorrect. There are a number of reasons for grand jury proceedings to not be public, particularly in national security cases.

One can disagree with grand juries as a legal concept, which is fine, but if you refuse to show up, there are legal consequences.

[travmatt]

To me, arguing grand juries should work in public just signals a poor understanding of the American legal system - in the purpose of grand juries, the intent behind their design, and what they actually do. Arguing that we need to remove protection against over-zealous prosecutors to make the system safer is pretty nonsensical to me.

[einpoklum]

The thing is, both secret and public grand juries (or similar constructs) can be and are manipulated by governments and over-zealous prosecutors specifically. Except that the manipulation uses different means.

[travmatt]

There’s no such thing as a public grand jury in America. Grand juries are undoubtedly biased towards prosecutors, since defendants have no role in a grand jury. A grand jury decides whether there is sufficient evidence of a crime to allow prosecutors to formally charge someone with a crime, where they then would have a trial with their opportunity to present a defense. Giving prosecutors a public platform to investigate people and associate them with crimes, even if they don’t plan to formally accuse them of such crimes, is quite literally arguing for an authoritarian society. I’m being charitable and assuming that the people who are asking for this actually want free societies and are quite ignorant, and aren’t actually advocates of authoritarian government.

[sloum]

I definitely agree about there being legal consequences. The issue here is that this should not be a situation in the first place, not that there are consequences for actions (which I am not arguing at all).

To your point about grand juries: many states do not use them anymore due to similar outrage as we are seeing here. There is widespread belief that secret tribunals are the things of kangaroo courts and backwater justice systems that people tend to despise (think ussr/north korea). They are largely used by governments to silence political opposition and hide that fact as much as possible.

[travmatt]

>not in a closed door meeting away from democratic due process monitored by the citizenry of the country.

Anyone who believes that grand juries are removed from the democratic process because they are confidential should probably learn more about the American legal system before they form their arguments.