Bradley Manning to be Pronounced Guilty Tomorrow Afternoon

Bradley Manning will learn his fate at 1 pm tomorrow. He's guilty.

James Joyner · Monday, July 29, 2013 · 1 comment

Bradley Manning will learn his fate at 1 pm tomorrow. Spoiler alert: he’s guilty.

CNN (“Verdict in Manning trial to be read Tuesday“):

After spending three years in custody, the man accused of the largest leak of classified information in U.S. history will learn Tuesday whether he has been found guilty of aiding the enemy.

A verdict in the court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning has been reached, and will be announced Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET, according to a spokeswoman for the military district of Washington.

Manning, among other counts, is charged with aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life prison sentence. He has pleaded guilty to nearly a dozen lesser charges that carry a sentence of up to 20 years behind bars.

The headline is a bit presumptuous, obviously, but either Manning is going to be pronounced guilty or an innocent man who’s already been in prison three years is going to be forced to spend another day behind bars for no apparent reason.

UPDATE: Leon Wolf notes via Twitter that Manning has already pled guilty to charges that would likely keep him in prison beyond time served, so there would be no real harm in waiting a day to announce the verdict even if he were going to be found “not guilty” on the remaining charges. That’s a reasonable point.