UPDATE: " Bradley Manning Trial" for those Dems who are Civil Rights Advocates!

[msanthrope]

133. No--what you have here is a lawyer using a vehicle that allows the introduction

of such evidence as a means to dislodge some of the charges, and cut the eventual sentence. You have a procedure under the UCMJ that allows for what is essentially a due process hearing before trial.

Manning is facing 22 charges, and any plea deal reached with the government would give him decades in prison. So the defense strategy seems to be:

1) Delay trial. Every single day Manning is in pre-trial confinement in medium security in Leavenworth is one day less that he has to serve in max security post conviction.

2) Knock some of the charges out pretrial.

3) Make the case that the holdover in Quantico constituted pre-trial punishment (i.e. he was kept in conditions that were not necessary to keep him from harm, but were punitive) and that equity demands that he get a ratio cut of his sentence served for each day served in the brig---so for every one day in the brig, he might get 3 days off his sentence.

His lawyer will reintroduce all of this at sentencing, but it's a great pre-trial strategy.