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| Sen. Lindsey Graham |
Lindsey Graham (Benghazi! Benghazi!) is up for reelection in South Carolina next year, and there are rumors that the Tea Party may support a candidate to challenge him forcing him into a Republican Party primary run-off. Thus Graham may think he has to prove his manly-man creds with combative stances against President Obama's policies, which he has admitted are
"good politics".
Even though the man suspected of detonating two bombs during the
Boston Marathon has already received his Miranda rights, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham Monday continued to press for the suspect to be "interrogated" and treated as an "enemy combatant" for intelligence-gathering purposes. But Graham said the information
gathered shouldn't be used in court because the suspect is a U.S.
citizen.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in
Kyrgyzstan, was charged Monday in federal court for last week's bombing,
which he allegedly set off with his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed last week during a police search for the
suspects.
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| Dzhokhar Tsnarnaev |
The Justice Department has declined to treat Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant, which would have allowed authorities to question him without an attorney present.
The authorities questioned Tsarnaev for 16 hours before he was read his Miranda rights. During that time, he confessed to the crimes, thus the confession cannot be used in court to make the case against him. Once he was read his Miranda rights, Tsarnaev stopped talking. Since there's probably enough evidence besides the confession, the prosecutors probably still have a strong case for Tsarnaev's conviction as one of the Boston bombers.
It’s...dismaying that authorities dribbled out bits of Tsarnaev’s
confession Monday and Tuesday after saying he’d been read his rights.
They never directly said he kept talking after he’d been Mirandized, but
they created that impression.
I've read elsewhere that the confession came after the reading of Miranda rights, and I see the source of the information now. Was this deliberate obfuscation by the authorities intended to confuse?
Despite previous statements about Tsarnaev's capture, it now appears he had no gun, and the authorities won't say what all the gunfire at the scene was about.
Although police feared he was heavily armed, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing had no firearms when he came under a barrage of police gunfire that struck the boat where he was hiding, according to multiple federal law enforcement officials.
Authorities said they were desperate to capture Dzhokhar Tsarnaev so he could be questioned. The FBI, however, declined to discuss what prompted the gunfire.
In time, I trust all the information in the news reports will be sorted out. I intended my post to be about Graham and his call for Tsarnaev to be treated as an enemy combatant, but as I heard and read more news, the post grew longer.
Well you know all this pre-Miranda stuff will be argued over at length in the courts and in the media, and I have a hunch the case will end up at the Supreme Court several years from now. Still, if the feds have enough physical evidence to connect him to the crime, plus the fact that he allegedly confessed to a witness - i.e., the guy whose care he hijacked - then his own confession may not be needed. But I'm no lawyer.
ReplyDeleteSeems inconceivable at this time that he could escape a conviction - unless of course, you agree with his mom that the entire bombing was staged, a giant hoax in the street:
http://americablog.com/2013/04/boston-marathon-bomb-suspects-mom-smells-a-hoax.html
Still, even though I don't doubt that the cops got the right man, one day in some other case, big or small, they may pinch the wrong man - it does happen - so it's important for civil liberties to watch this case very closely.
Just to expand a little bit: this whole Patriot Act "treat them as enemy combatants" stuff is very, very dangerous and very wrong.
ReplyDeleteLook at what just happened with the Elvis impersonator who the feds thought sure had sent the ricin letters. Oh but come to find out - they wuz wrong! If Lindsey Graham and his ilk had their way - and many of that ilk are gathered at SMU today, what a frightful reunion that must be - then Elvis would already be sitting in a dark hellhole in Guantanamo.
Terrorism must be fought, and wherever possible prevented, of course. But turning the country into a police state, tearing up the Constitution, is not the way to go about it.
Remember Stephen Hatfill who was mistakenly labeled as a "person of interest" in the case of the anthrax letters sent to public officials some years ago? He was eventually exonerated, but his life was ruined.
Delete...this whole Patriot Act "treat them as enemy combatants" stuff is very, very dangerous and very wrong.
Exactly. The Patriot Act was passed in fear and haste. Members of Congress were afraid to vote against the bill, lest they be labeled soft on terrorism. I was disappointed when Obama signed the extension.
I was very disappointed to. Does he know something, some very good reason to keep it, that we don't know? Or was it an act of political calculation? I suppose in time the historians will sort it out, but from an historical viewpoint, to me it seems we are no longer in the age of the Republic, but of the Empire, with a very different set of rules.
ReplyDeleteRuss, who know? These days, Republicans are easier to understand than Democrats.
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