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A guilty plea faced with the choice of continued imprisonment in inhumane conditions or the risk of extradition to a country that might jail him for life or exe

by vidarh 2y ago

A guilty plea faced with the choice of continued imprisonment in inhumane conditions or the risk of extradition to a country that might jail him for life or execute him does not end the argument of whether or not he is guilty of anything. It's a coerced plea. It only ends the argument of whether or not there is still a legal case against him.

jonhohle 2y ago
I really would hope more people would understand this. Faced with indefinite detention and infinite legal cost would you admit to something you didn’t do to walk free? I’m pretty sure most people would. It’s a difficult area of research, but there are various law schools[0] and charities[1] trying to help people who took pleas because they feared a harsher sentence if they couldn’t adequately defend themselves. 0 - https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/NRE.Guilty.Plea.Article1.pdf https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/NRE.... 1 - https://innocenceproject.org/ https://innocenceproject.org/
pdabbadabba 2y ago
> a country that might jail him for life or execute him I've always found this claim to be extremely shrill — and doubly so now. This is the same country that just agreed to let him plead guilty in exchange for, essentially, time served (~5 years). It's also the same country whose president commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence down to 7 years. Your basic claim is not an unreasonable one: people plead guilty because they'd rather take the deal than face the possibility of a worse outcome at trial. But what will it take to stop the rhetoric about the U.S. wanting to lock him up and throw away the key?
- vidarh 2y ago
  It's also the same country that agreed to it only after it became clear that there was a real chance they might suffer the embarrassment of not getting an extradition and/or have to deal with a government after the election come the July 4 election that might - despite how I dislike Starmer - be at least somewhat less receptive to US pressure. > It's also the same country whose president commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence down to 7 years. The same country who may have a different president come November with a history of calling the Assange case a priority. Why would anyone feel safe relying on the luck of the draw of the president at any given time to get out of what was an initial utterly extreme sentence? > But what will it take to stop the rhetoric about the U.S. wanting to lock him up and throw away the key? When the US stops sentencing people to 35 years like with Chelsea Manning's initial sentence, and there's been a long period without e.g. illegal rendition flights, when Guantanamo Bay has been closed for a few decades and no new camps have taken it's place etc. Maybe when a couple of generations have passed, in other words.
- tremon 2y ago
  But what will it take to stop the rhetoric about the U.S. wanting to lock him up and throw away the key? Actually acknowledging and prosecuting the war crimes that were exposed would be a good start.
CalChris 2y ago
If you are going to call his guilty plea an expedient choice then Assange should have taken Trump's more expedient offer of a pardon 7 years ago: less time, no felony.
- vidarh 2y ago
  I didn't call it an expedient choice. And it's easy to say 7 years later that it would have been better for him to have taken it than after years of imprisonment in inhuman conditions to soften him up. People have breaking points.

by vidarh 2y ago

jonhohle 2y ago

I really would hope more people would understand this. Faced with indefinite detention and infinite legal cost would you admit to something you didn’t do to walk free? I’m pretty sure most people would. It’s a difficult area of research, but there are various law schools[0] and charities[1] trying to help people who took pleas because they feared a harsher sentence if they couldn’t adequately defend themselves. 0 - https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/NRE.Guilty.Plea.Article1.pdf https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/NRE.... 1 - https://innocenceproject.org/ https://innocenceproject.org/

pdabbadabba 2y ago

> a country that might jail him for life or execute him I've always found this claim to be extremely shrill — and doubly so now. This is the same country that just agreed to let him plead guilty in exchange for, essentially, time served (~5 years). It's also the same country whose president commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence down to 7 years. Your basic claim is not an unreasonable one: people plead guilty because they'd rather take the deal than face the possibility of a worse outcome at trial. But what will it take to stop the rhetoric about the U.S. wanting to lock him up and throw away the key?

vidarh 2y ago
It's also the same country that agreed to it only after it became clear that there was a real chance they might suffer the embarrassment of not getting an extradition and/or have to deal with a government after the election come the July 4 election that might - despite how I dislike Starmer - be at least somewhat less receptive to US pressure. > It's also the same country whose president commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence down to 7 years. The same country who may have a different president come November with a history of calling the Assange case a priority. Why would anyone feel safe relying on the luck of the draw of the president at any given time to get out of what was an initial utterly extreme sentence? > But what will it take to stop the rhetoric about the U.S. wanting to lock him up and throw away the key? When the US stops sentencing people to 35 years like with Chelsea Manning's initial sentence, and there's been a long period without e.g. illegal rendition flights, when Guantanamo Bay has been closed for a few decades and no new camps have taken it's place etc. Maybe when a couple of generations have passed, in other words.
tremon 2y ago
But what will it take to stop the rhetoric about the U.S. wanting to lock him up and throw away the key? Actually acknowledging and prosecuting the war crimes that were exposed would be a good start.

CalChris 2y ago

If you are going to call his guilty plea an expedient choice then Assange should have taken Trump's more expedient offer of a pardon 7 years ago: less time, no felony.

vidarh 2y ago
I didn't call it an expedient choice. And it's easy to say 7 years later that it would have been better for him to have taken it than after years of imprisonment in inhuman conditions to soften him up. People have breaking points.