PFC Manning has offered to plead guilty to various offenses through a process known as “pleading by exceptions and substitutions.” To clarify, PFC Manning is not pleading guilty to the specifications as charged by the Government. Rather, PFC Manning is attempting to accept responsibility for offenses that are encapsulated within, or are a subset of, the charged offenses. The Court will consider whether this is a permissible plea.
PFC Manning is not submitting a plea as part of an agreement or deal with the Government. Further, the Government does not need to agree to PFC Manning’s plea; the Court simply has to determine that the plea is legally permissible. If the Court allows PFC Manning to plead guilty by exceptions and substitutions, the Government may still elect to prove up the charged offenses. Pleading by exceptions and substitutions, in other words, does not change the offenses with which PFC Manning has been charged and for which he is scheduled to stand trial.
PFC Manning has also provided notice of his forum selection. He has elected to be tried by Military Judge alone.
The Guardian simplifies the point: “By taking this legal route, Manning is not pleading guilty to any of the 22 charges brought against him, and nor is he making a plea bargain. He is asking the court to rule on whether his plea accepting limited responsibility is admissible in the case.”
samstrident asks: re: your recent post on PVC Manning, I don't know if you've reported on this before, but she identifies as a woman, and according to the Manning-Lamo Chat Logs, she goes by Breanna.
» SFB says: While there is evidence — specifically in the chat logs with Lamo — of this, and it has come up in court, we’re largely going off of evidence from correspondence initially intended to be private and court proceedings where it was suggested that Bradley Manning suffered from gender identity disorder in the past, but not whether he continues to do so. What if, for example, Manning never intended on going public until after they were out of the military? What if this was forced out into the public eye against Manning’s will? (While the Lamo chatlogs suggest against this, people can and do change their minds.) We have no problem with calling Manning Breanna. The trouble here is that there’s been no public overture that it’s Manning’s intention (from, say, Manning’s defense attorney, who posted the photo and called him “PFC Bradley Manning”), but Manning is in a situation where’s it’s difficult to say that out loud. I think that’s why you haven’t seen more mainstream outlets run with this story angle — the lines are blurry, and I think it’s hard for any outlet to make a change like this without public confirmation. What do you guys think? — Ernie @ SFB
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