The prosecution’s repeatedly botched handling of the disclosure phase of the Bradley Manning trial led to calls by the defense to dismiss the case entirely, and while that hasn’t happened the judge seems to be taking the matter increasingly seriously.
Judge Denise Lind gave the prosecution one month to hand over all reports related to the WikiLeaks impact on national security and, for good measure, ordered them to provide a detailed account of how they are (or aren’t) meeting their obligations on disclosure.
The prosecution had originally sought to avoid handing over any documents relating to their claim that Manning caused harm to national security, saying that the evidence was “confidential” and couldn’t be given to the defense.
This was of course only one in a long series of failures to produce evidence by the prosecution, some blamed on clerical errors but most ending with a flat assertion that the evidence was “classified.”
