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Snowden Would Return To US If Government Guarantees Fair Trial (thehill.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Edward Snowden said if the government would guarantee him a fair trial, he would return to the United States. Snowden spoke via Skype from Russia on Saturday at the New Hampshire Liberty Forum, WTOP reported. "I've told the government I would return if they would guarantee a fair trial where I can make a public interest defense of why this was done and allow a jury to decide," Snowden said.
That's Assange.
This is Snowden.
Different people.
Espionage Act it is. The only defense allowed being "I didn't do it". Which would be rather ridiculous.
And judge and jury only get to decide "did he do it?".
There is nothing in store for Edward Snowden but a sham trial with hardwired "Guilty" verdict. The U.S. won't clean up their ridiculous laws allowing the government to get predetermined results when they really want it. Most certainly not in order to benefit Snowden or any old whistleblower;.
It's called jury nullification, and the legal system really, really, really doesn't like it, even though its totally a thing.
In a trial by jury the law does recognize moral acts by way of jury nullification.
Jury nullification occurs in a trial when a jury acquits a defendant, even though the members of the jury may believe that the defendant did the illegal act, yet they don't believe he or she should be punished for it. This may occur when members of the jury disagree with the law the defendant has been charged with breaking, or believe that the law should not be applied in that particular case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
No, if you read the article you will know that his definition of "fair" is that he is allowed to argue, in court, that he was a whistleblower. The last person charged in this manner was bared from even mentioning words that defended themselves in this manner. That does seem particularly unfair to me as well.