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If Manning is convicted, as many observers expect, his attorneys will get to talk about the effect of the leaks during the trial's penalty phase. That's when the jury would get to decide how much time Manning should spend in prison for any misdeeds. But Manning's attorney said Wednesday that would be too late. And experts agreed Manning stands to benefit if his attorneys are allowed to downplay the damage of the leaks during the trial itself, when a jury will decide his guilt or innocence on each of the 22 charges he faces. Experts said that if a jury hears early on that the leaks caused little or no harm, it is possible they would give Manning a pass on some of the charges or possibly convict him of only less serious ones. A more plausible effect is that the more defense attorneys can repeat their no harm theory, the better chance Manning has for a light sentence, experts said. Jon Shelburne, who has frequently been a defense attorney in military cases, said it would be a large leap for a military jury to let Manning off the hook simply because no harm resulted from his actions. Greg Rinckey, a former Army lawyer now in private practice, agreed but said military juries can be unpredictable, smiling one minute and delivering a shocking verdict the next. "You never know how a jury is going to act," he said. Victor Hansen, an Army lawyer for more than a decade, said the judge's ruling on the issue is ultimately important for both sides. Excluding evidence of harm makes the prosecution's already complex case more straightforward, said Hansen, who now teaches at New England Law in Boston. On the defense side, it would prevent Manning's lawyers from introducing their major theme, essentially: "No harm, no foul." Hansen, who had worked with Manning's defense attorney when the two were in the Army, said it is a common defense tactic to talk about sympathetic evidence early if it is clear your client is guilty. Manning's defense team's no harm theory fits that pattern, Hansen said. "What they're trying to do is start a theme early in the case they're going to return to over and over and over again." The judge did not say when she would rule. Also on Wednesday she declined for a second time to dismiss two charges against Manning, as his defense attorneys had asked.
[Associated
Press;
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