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>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, the

>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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
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.
- hn_throwaway_69 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    Legal precedent is just what aboutism then. Doesn't make it any less important in a normal judicial system
- formerly_proven 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike#Military_legal_review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...
- thereddaikon 2y ago
  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 2y ago

vidarh 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
  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 2y ago

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.

hn_throwaway_69 2y ago
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 2y ago
  Legal precedent is just what aboutism then. Doesn't make it any less important in a normal judicial system
formerly_proven 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike#Military_legal_review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...
thereddaikon 2y ago
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 2y ago