Why could Chelsea Manning be facing solitary?
Chelsea Manning's attorney says her client could be placed in solitary confinement for or violating prison rules.
Chelsea Manning's attorney says her client could be placed in solitary confinement for or violating prison rules.
Chelsea Manning, the US Army soldier sentenced to 35 years in prison for releasing classified documents to WikiLeaks, could be placed in solitary聽confinement indefinitely for violating prison rules.
Ms. Manning鈥檚 attorney Nancy Hollander told the Associated Press that one of the charges is possession of prohibited property including a copy of Vanity Fair with Caitlyn Jenner on the cover and a novel about transgender issues.
According to Ms. Hollander, an Aug. 18 hearing is set at the Fort Leavenworth prison in Kansas. Manning has asked for a public hearing but the session before a three-person panel will be closed.
The maximum penalty Manning could face is indefinite solitary confinement.
The former intelligence analyst, formerly known as Bradley Manning, was convicted in 2013 of espionage and other offenses for sending more than 700,000 classified documents to Wikileaks in 2010.
Hollander says Manning is also charged with medicine misuse relating to expired toothpaste; disorderly conduct for sweeping food onto the floor; and disrespect.
"It is not uncommon in prisons to have charges that to the rest of us seem to be absurd," Hollander said. "Prisons are very controlled environments and they try to keep them very controlled and sometimes in that control they really go too far and I think that this is going too far."
Christopher Epps, the former Mississippi prison chief told The New York Times in 2012 that while prison wardens start out isolating prisoners who scare them, they eventually start using it for inmates they鈥檙e 鈥渕ad at.鈥�
海角大神鈥檚 Patrik Jonsson wrote last June:
鈥淪olitary confinement is something that ought to be used as a last resort, because I don鈥檛 think it promotes mental health, so you鈥檙e not creating better citizens [upon release],鈥� Paul Robinson, an expert on criminal sentencing at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia told Mr. Jonsson. But at the same time, he says, 鈥渟ometimes there are very good reasons [for using solitary] because for some people, solitary confinement is the only responsible way to incarcerate them.鈥�