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Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

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Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#71
post #67
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't care. They have enough evidence to put him away for life, or to even execute him.

Massachusetts does not have the death penalty.

Doesn't terrorism make it federal?

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#72
post #58

Tsarnaev and his brother planted bombs. It is not unreasonable for the FBI to be concerned that they may have left other bombs in place that could detonate later. Or, that there were other people involved that we don't know about. Invoking the public safety exception to the Miranda rights seems prudent to me.

Or so thats what we are being told at this point without any evidence being presented in court with a trial in front of his peers…

But believe in your State™.

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#73
post #67
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't care. They have enough evidence to put him away for life, or to even execute him.

Massachusetts does not have the death penalty.

The federal government does

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#74
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We haven't even verified that he hasn't been mirandized yet. So, no.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/doj-official-no-... A DOJ official explains why Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev has not been read his Miranda rights. "The suspect is en route to the hospital for immediate treatment," the official tells TPM's Sahil Kapur. "But we plan to invoke the public safety exception to Miranda in order to question the suspect extensively about other potential explosi…

I'm fairly sure that the various agencies and investigative apparatuses have generally come to the consensus that there is no remaining threat, and have explicitly said as much. How can they invoke this Exception when they have stated (and, now as it has become obvious) that there is not a threat? It just seems that invoking the Exception is tantamount to a post facto repudiation of their previous statements, and would require some sort of justification for a reemergence of a threat other than some assertion that conflicts what the entire rest of the world has agreed upon (something which they don't seem to have). They're trying to have their cake and eat it, and it doesn't seem as though it will go over well in court.

I'm not versed in the law at all, but this seems intuitively sketchy and lacking in justification. Am I missing something?

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#75
post #67
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't care. They have enough evidence to put him away for life, or to even execute him.

Massachusetts does not have the death penalty.

It will be tried in federal court.

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#76
post #23

This article is ridiculous. It starts with the assertion "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will not hear his Miranda rights before the FBI questions him Friday night." How do we or the author know this, is he assuming this is common practice, has FBI mentioned that they won't read him Miranda? Second, I was expecting him to mention a case where the police or FBI didn't read the rights to what turned out to be a non-threat/wrong acc…

The author is a her.

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#77
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm so tired of this quote." -rmrfrmrf

Why? It is in times such as these, it is the most important to remind us of this.

A few reasons:

1) In this particular case, the public safety exception to Miranda has been around since 1984 (cue Orwellian conspiracy theories). So, for almost 30 years (longer than my existence), Americans have been "deprived" of this "liberty". Suddenly it becomes an issue in 2013 for armchair devil's advocates in a pretty much open-shut case of domestic terrorism.

Furthermore, the Miranda warning never existed in Ben Franklin's time -- it's a "right" given to us purely via judicial policy. Given that not even Ben Franklin thought that an explicit reading of one's Constitutional rights was worthy of inclusion in the amendments, one could argue that the Miranda warning is a "nonessential liberty," in which case Franklin's quote wouldn't even apply.

2) The same people who spew out this quote give up liberty for safety every day as a convenience. Our purchases, thoughts, questions, conversations, and movements are all monitored on a daily basis. Ironically, the people who frequent HN are actually the ones responsible for not only implementing these monitoring technologies, but also monetizing them--figuring out how to use all of this data collected on you to squeeze extra nickels and dimes out of you. In these cases, we give up liberty for...what, exactly? "Free" products? Certainly not safety. This "it's only wrong if the government does it" BS doesn't fly with me. We ARE the government.

3) The quote itself doesn't explain why those who choose to give up liberty for safety deserve neither--in fact, the only thing going for this quote at all was that Ben Franklin said it. Take away the attribution and you're left with an empty sound bite.

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#78
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm so tired of this quote." -rmrfrmrf

Why? It is in times such as these, it is the most important to remind us of this.

The quote doesn't give brilliant insight into a complicated problem. It just states an opinion and ties a bow on it. There are swathes of such quotes, and you can find one to support nearly any viewpoint. Of the swathes, however, this particular quote has been beaten to a veritable pulp through (mis)use. It is second in prevalence only to invocation of Godwin's law in discussions of this topic (incidentally, there's a nice example of that below).

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#79
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only seems weird if you think of Miranda (and various other procedural protections) as a "gotcha" to hinder police efforts, instead of what it is: a way to keep people ignorant of their 5th amendment rights from incriminating themselves. That's the alpha and the omega of Miranda. It's not a search and seizure protection at all, which is why evidence obtained as a result of a Miranda-less interrogation is nonethele…

So what's the "public safety exception" about then? We're starting from the position that, absent a public safety concern, the defendant's right to know his rights is greater than the law enforcement interest in not encouraging the defendant to exercise them, and if the cops don't read the Miranda rights then the statements aren't admissible. Now throw in a public safety issue -- the cops have to interrogate this guy…

The public safety exception exists so police don't have to decide, before the fact in a dangerous situation, whether to immediately interrogate the suspect and give up the possibility of using what he says to convict him or to read him his Miranda rights and risk harm to the public.

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#80

You shouldn't care. Because not reading someone under arrest the Miranda warning is constitutionally irrelevant in and of itself. It only acquires relevance if the government seeks to have the statements admitted at trial. Discussing the similar case of Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to bomb Times Square, Orin Kerr, a law professor who is an expert on the 4th Amendment wrote: "Importantly, though, it would not have vi…

The public safety exception seems to be for when a Miranda warning would be impractical: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning#Public_safety_... I'm not sure if having a reasonable opportunity to read someone their rights, then choosing not to, is in the spirit of the public safety exception. Public danger alone can't be the reason, since the whole reason for criminal law in the first place is to protect the…

I think it comes down to the quote in the OP "So while it may sound weird, it turns out that obtaining a statement outside Miranda but not admitting it in court is lawful."

Your assuming the motivation is to violate the suspect's rights. It might not be -- there might be a clear and reasonable aim to find out if there are others involved.

The authorities probably has a lot of evidence & a strong case without the interrogation. That they want to question the suspect about other parties or networks seems reasonable.

It's a tactic, but perhaps their primary motivation isn't to interrogate to get a conviction -- it's to garner a wider net of information. In that case, the Miranda & having the suspect clam up would be a hinderance.

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