« Highlighting notable rulings for when federal prisoners can start earning time credits under the First Step Act | Main | Highlighting continuing challenges in implementing First Step Act's custody transition mandates »
November 12, 2024
Pentagon secrets leaker sentenced after plea deal to 15 years in prison
Professor Sam Merchant, in a forthcoming article to appear in the next issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter, makes the astute point that it is hard to assess or even understand judicial sentencing discretion exericised by federal judges after Booker without a deeper understanding of plea practices. As he puts it: "If binding or nonbinding plea agreements actually drove the [most federal] sentences, any discussion of judicial discretion that ignores the central role of plea agreements is at best incomplete and at worst inaccurate or misleading." This insight came to mind when I saw this AP report about today's high-profile sentencing of a "Massachusetts Air National Guard member to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to leaking highly classified military documents about the war in Ukraine." Here are the basics:
Jack Teixeira pleaded guilty earlier this year to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act following his arrest in the most consequential national security case in years....
The security breach raised alarm over America’s ability to protect its most closely guarded secrets and forced the Biden administration to scramble to try to contain the diplomatic and military fallout. The leaks embarrassed the Pentagon, which tightened controls to safeguard classified information and disciplined members found to have intentionally failed to take required action about Teixeira’s suspicious behavior....
Earlier in court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Dolan told [Judge] Talwani that 200 months — or a little more than 16 1/2 years - was appropriate given the “historic” damage caused by Teixeira’s conduct that aided adversaries of the United States and hurt the country’s allies. He also said that recommendation by prosecutors would send a message to anyone in the military who might consider similar conduct....
But Teixeira’s attorney Michael Bachrach told the judge Tuesday that 11 years was sufficient. “It is a significant, harsh and difficult sentence, one that will not be easy to serve,” Bachrach said. “It will serve as an extreme deterrent to anyone, particularly young servicemen. That is enough to keep them deterred from committing serious conduct.”
When Teixeira pleaded guilty, prosecutors said they would seek a prison term at the high end of the sentencing range. But the defense wrote in their sentencing memorandum earlier that the 11 years “would be essentially equal to half the life that Jack has lived thus far.”
His attorneys had described Teixeira as an autistic, isolated individual who spent most of his time online, especially with his Discord community. They said his actions, though criminal, were never meant to “harm the United States.” He also had no prior criminal record. “Instead, his intent was to educate his friends about world events to make certain they were not misled by misinformation,” the attorneys wrote. “To Jack, the Ukraine war was his generation’s World War II or Iraq, and he needed someone to share the experience with.”
Prosecutors in court filings countered that Teixeira did not suffer from any intellectual disability that would prevent him from knowing right from wrong, adding his post-arrest diagnosis of “mild, high-functioning” autism was of “questionable relevance” to the proceedings.
Why, one might wonder, did the prosecution "only" argue for a 16+-year sentence while the defense was "only" advocating for 11 years? Becuase the parties defined those numbers as the acceptable sentencing range in this case via the plea agreement. Perhaps the district judge here might have thought to impose a 15-year sentence without the plea agreement providing this binding anchor on the outcome, but we can never really know.
November 12, 2024 at 05:46 PM | Permalink
Comments
Zero sympathy for this defendant.
According to Wikipedia, the documents contained extensive details about the war in Ukraine, including casualty estimates, US military aid to Ukraine, Russian attempts to disrupt Starlink in Ukraine, and internal discussions by the Ukrainian military. No way we want the Russians to have that.
Wikipedia also details documents relating to China, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Serbia, South Korea, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Canada, Haiti, and the United Arab Emirates.
On top of that, according to Wikipedia, the documents describe sources and methods. They include information that would put human sources at risk.
One wonders if any Ukrainians were killed because of his leaks. One wonders if terrorists realized the Feds were onto them. One wonders if human sources had to be extracted or were killed.
Teixeira knew what he was doing was wrong and took steps to conceal his actions. All just to impress his friends.
Posted by: William Jockusch | Nov 12, 2024 8:10:39 PM
Compare that with the sentence of Jonathan Pollard . . . .
Posted by: federalist | Nov 13, 2024 9:49:36 AM