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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?

#151

Post by hermannj314 »

Derbasti wrote: post #100

"if prevention rather than prosecution is to be our new main goal" I find this increadibly dangerous. Does that mean the police will move against "potential" crimes? Against people making plans? I hereby jokingly declare that I am planning to steal a cucumber at my local supermarket. Does this make me a goal of preventive action? Did I commit a thought-crime? 1984 and Minority Report come to mind when people say stuf…

Crimes like "it is illegal to drive and use a mobile device" and "it is illegal to drive while intoxicated" are meant to be preventative. You are committing a crime merely by creating the risk that something bad could happen.

But where does it stop? If, hypothetically, children raised by a single mother are more likely to commit violent crimes, then it ought to be illegal to be a single mother. That sort of law, which seems crazy, seems to be along the same thought process of why you shouldn't use your cell phone while driving.

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

#152

Post by analog »

Derbasti wrote: post #149
analog wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conspiracy is already a crime. Your cucumber example wouldn't attract a response because nobody actually cares enough to prosecute it. For example if your cucumber was made of solid goal then you would become a target of preventive action. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(crime)

Luckily, this applies mostly to English speaking countries. The rest of the world seems to require some actual criminal action for prosecution.

Lucky for people planning crimes I guess, unlucky for the rest of us.

Edit: Your claim that this is limited to mainly English speaking countries is not even true.

"Most nations prosecute inchoate acts (such as conspiracy and incitation) in their domestic criminal law."

https://www.law.upenn.edu/journals/jil/jilp/articles/1-1_Ste...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inchoate_offense

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

#153

Post by newbie12 »

lbarrow wrote: post #114
hncommenter13 wrote: post #36

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…

Being read your Miranda rights also serves as an explicit acknowledgement by the state that you have those rights. Most of the time, this isn't really important, but in this case it would have served a very important purpose. The Bush administration systematically created a legal netherworld for people they captured on suspicion of terrorism -- people usually referred to as "enemy combatants". They weren't arrested p…

Don't blame Bush, the Obama administration Justice department created the Miranda exception for "operational terrorists". This has nothing to do with enemy combatants; rather, there is the possibility that an active terror suspect on US soil has information about an active threat to public safety, and the police have a right (and duty) to question him about possible threats.

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

#154

Post by newbie12 »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #133
rayiner wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What does it take to read someone their Miranda rights? 20 seconds? The dude has been in custody for hours and they simply said he won't be read them at all. It's not a safety issue at all.

No, Miranda means they don't have to answer questions and they can have a lawyer present.

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

#155

Post by jlgreco »

thomasz wrote: post #141
pyre wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are also getting away with it because the torture isn't of the "strap electrodes to his genitals" variety, which most people would immediately reject. Stuff like "loud music," "putting a holy book in a toilet," or "make him think he's drowning," don't evoke the same sort of immediate reaction. If the administration were openly performing at "Inquisition" levels of torture, there would be massive public outcry.

I fail to see the difference between "waterboarding" and "strap electrodes to his genitals" torture.

That is because you understand what waterboarding is. The general public, at least at the time, seemed to lack a proper appreciation for what it really meant.

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

#156

Post by pvaldes »

SilentStump wrote: post #143

Dzhokhar was in no state to hear his Miranda rights. He was in serious need of medical attention, so the highest priority is his medical attention, not reading an injured person his miranda rights. Also, I'm not sure if he'd even have been able to repsond that he understood.

Exactly, that's the point. I was wondering how to rightly interrogate to a severely wounded person. (sarcasm: You can not talk of course, but, hey! do you want this pretty anaesthetic injection?)

Here is a real risk to end like in Madrid's 11-M, dead terrorists -> no answers -> a lot of problems for all spaniards. The FBI will probably want to secure the game and to avoid this, and to avoid the spreading of rumours for years also. The full recovering of this guy probably is in his priority's list now. And I'm not joking at all. Simply there is no point in let him die; only other terrorists (if they are other terrorists) could gain something with this. It's the old same history since Lee Harvey Oswald.

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

#158

Post by statictype »

newbie12 wrote: post #154
ryguytilidie wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it take to read someone their Miranda rights? 20 seconds? The dude has been in custody for hours and they simply said he won't be read them at all. It's not a safety issue at all.

No, Miranda means they don't have to answer questions and they can have a lawyer present.

No. They have those rights whether or not the police remembers to verbally inform the suspect. The suspect has every right to remain silent and every right to an attorney, even if the officer detaining him chooses not to remind him about it.

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

#159

Post by nraynaud »

I think some tradeoff could also be reasonable: throwing part of the evidences in the name of public safety. You could interrogate someone in an emergency situation and not use the declaration or anything coming from his declaration later in court. And only use material evidence found before. As far as I know, here they already have strong evidence against the guy, now is time for due process and trial.

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

#160

Post by cmdkeen »

hermannj314 wrote: post #151
Derbasti wrote: post #100

"if prevention rather than prosecution is to be our new main goal" I find this increadibly dangerous. Does that mean the police will move against "potential" crimes? Against people making plans? I hereby jokingly declare that I am planning to steal a cucumber at my local supermarket. Does this make me a goal of preventive action? Did I commit a thought-crime? 1984 and Minority Report come to mind when people say stuf…

Crimes like "it is illegal to drive and use a mobile device" and "it is illegal to drive while intoxicated" are meant to be preventative. You are committing a crime merely by creating the risk that something bad could happen. But where does it stop? If, hypothetically, children raised by a single mother are more likely to commit violent crimes, then it ought to be illegal to be a single mother. That sort of law, whic…

Because it comes down to balancing rights, and determining which ones are absolute, and how we weight other rights in relation to each other.

So the right to a family life (to use the EU term) is held to be very important, and thus the bar to sterilisation/removing children is really high. The right to use a phone whilst driving on a publicly maintained road is not. Especially as the public's right not to have a 1 ton+ vehicle travelling at speed driving in an impaired fashion is quite important.

Plus it is about mitigating harms. Handsfree kits are allowed for example.

The exact thing happens in this case. His right to be silent or have a lawyer present is not infringed. His right to be informed whilst being asked questions relating to public safety about future threats is being infringed, because society shouldn't have to choose between future potential victims and prosecuting an individual for crimes already committed.

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