[hn_throwaway_69]

>innocent until proven guilty and all that

To be fair, he was refusing to face trial. And he is expected to plead guilty, so he isn't innocent.

That said, there may be legitimate questions about whether the United States should be entitled to exercise jurisdiction over foreign nationals who are not physically present in the jurisdiction for national security offences.

[vidarh]

Pleading guilty under the threat of either continued incarceration in inhuman conditions or extradition somewhere that could potentially murder you says nothing about guilt in anything but strict legal terms. It's a coerced plea.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Aren't all pleas basically coerced pleas though? The entire point is that you plead guilty to a lesser punishment in order to avoid the chance of a much more severe punishment.

[vidarh]

When accompanied by promises of a less punishment: Yes.

And so I think even with a guilty please, there ought to be a requirement for the prosecution to prove the case. Maybe lower the bar a little bit, but not much. And that is indeed how pleas work most places.

Few jurisdictions have US-style plea bargains where the prosecutor can negotiate large "discounts" to the potential maximum sentencing and get judges to agree.

To me, a country that allows that and where they are frequently taken does not have a functioning justice system.

There's also a significant difference with respect to the coercion when sentences are long, and when the possible variation in sentence length is huge, and the US stands out as particularly bad with respect to both of those factors as well.

[mnw21cam]

The usual standard in the UK is for a sentence to get a reduction of around 1/3 for a guilty plea. The situation I hear of in the US where people are threatened with a 537 year sentence if they plead not guilty or a 3 month sentence if they plead guilty is a travesty and surely leads to vast levels of injustice.

[rand846633]

Did the US army or its participating individuals ever get charged for killing the “collateral murder” Reuters journalists? Or for doing the same to the proximate other civilians? Or for covering it all up?

The question who is guilty by a US court does not determine the guilt of an individual in any relevant or moral way under these extreme circumstances. It just indicates if you are part of the system or if you rather are uncomfortable and need to be silenced.

[formerly_proven]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...

[thereddaikon]

Definitely whataboutism, but the crew were investigated before the leak and it was found that the reporters were with armed fighters and were not distinguishable as civilian reporters. While its unfortunate, walking around in an active warzone with armed combatants and not taking steps to clearly identify yourself as a non combatant isn't wise. These things happen in war. They were not intentionally targeted and they weren't murdered. War reporters know the risk they are taking on and this is why they usually clearly mark themselves as press.

[rand846633]

Victim blaming.

Yes the killed journalists were in a country that was being attacked by a foreign nation. This does not make it their fault that they were murdered.

While this might be a common occurrence in war, it does not excuse anything: if wars are fought in a way that these kill innocent people then they should not be fought in the first place. Something is not morally excusable only because it is expected when done.

Thirdly, sure the crew was investigated (here i admittedly only know what wiki has to offer) but there is no known outcome of said internal investigation.

[thereddaikon]

I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous and unrealistic stance. People die in wars. That's just a fact of life. I have sympathy for uninvolved civilians who don't want to be there. But war reporters know the risks and willingly enter warzones to report on them. Its just like reporting anything else dangerous. There is a risk you will die. There is a risk you will die in a tragic and preventable way too. Things could have been done differently but the footage is public now. Watch it yourself, they were walking with armed combatants and didn't look any different. There is no way the crew could have known they were reporters. The US military's ROE in GWOT was very restrictive for reasons just like this. But that doesn't mean its perfect. Arguing that nobody innocent should die is some kind of realistic standard reeks of an easy life and first world privilege.

[hn_throwaway_69]

The first paragraph is whatabouttery, the second may be accepted, but the claim I replied to was he was legally innocent until proven guilty. That is what I was addressing, not some broader notion of morality.

[mardifoufs]

Legal precedent is just what aboutism then. Doesn't make it any less important in a normal judicial system