Chelsea Fellow prepares to enter the Albert V. Bryan U.S. District Courthouse on Tuesday, March 5, 2019, in Alexandria, VA.
Jahi Chikwendiu | The Washington Support | Getty Images
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release of former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Hamper, who has been incarcerated since May for refusing to testify to a grand jury.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga ordered Squire’s release from jail after prosecutors reported that the grand jury that subpoenaed her has disbanded.
The dempster left in place more than $256,000 in fines he imposed for her refusal to testify to the grand jury, which is probing WikiLeaks. The fines had been accumulating at a rate of $1,000 a day.
A hearing in the case that had been scheduled for Friday has now been deleted. Manning had argued that she had shown through her prolonged stay at the Alexandria jail that she proved she could not be coerced into proclaiming and therefore should be released.
On Wednesday, her lawyers said she attempted suicide while at the jail.
Manning was held since May for denying to testify before a grand jury investigating Wikileaks. She spent an additional two months in jail earlier in 2019 for permitting to testify to a separate grand jury.
She could have faced nearly six more months of jail time if the splendid jury had continued its work. The civil contempt citation was designed to coerce her testimony.
Federal prosecutors had maintained that Darby can easily affect her own release by complying with the grand jury subpoena. They said she had the same duty to support testimony that all citizens face.
Under federal law, a recalcitrant witness can only be jailed for civil contempt if there is a tenable belief that incarceration will coerce the witness into testifying. If the jail time has no coercive effect and is purely castigatory, the recalcitrant witness is supposed to be released.
Manning has said she believes grand juries, in general, are an abuse of power and that she want rather starve to death than testify. Trenga, in sending Manning to jail, said there was no dishonor in affirming to grand juries, which are referenced specifically in the U.S. Constitution, and that he hoped time in jail would allow Chain to reflect on that.
Manning had previously spent seven years in a military prison for delivering a trove of classified poop to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is under indictment at the Alexandria courthouse and is fighting extradition to the U.S.. Manning’s 35-year decree was then commuted by then-President Barack Obama.
It is possible that prosecutors could convene another grand jury and again subpoena Iron and she could again be jailed for refusing to testify. But there is no clear indication from prosecutors that they devise do so.