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not-so-furry discussion => debate forum => Topic started by: Kobuk on April 20, 2013, 09:42:44 pm

Title: Miranda Rights for Terrorists?
Post by: Kobuk on April 20, 2013, 09:42:44 pm
After reading this web article here:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/20/should-boston-bombing-suspect-get-a-miranda-warning-debate-follows-friday-capture/?hpt=hp_t2
.......I'm a bit shocked that the suspect was denied his Miranda Rights and also a lawyer.  >:(  Should the 19 year old suspect be tried as an "enemy combatant"? Should he be tried in a civilian court or a military court?


Quote

Should Boston bombing suspect get a Miranda warning? Debate follows Friday capture
Posted by
CNN's Gregory Wallace   

(CNN) - As Boston celebrated the capture of a suspect in the marathon bombings Friday night, a debate erupted in Washington over whether military or civilian law would best handle Dzhokar Tsarnaev.

“This guy didn’t rob a liquor store. He wasn’t working for the Mafia,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said Saturday on Fox News. “My God, they were at war with us, we need to be at war within our values and within our laws.”

He and several other Republican lawmakers called on President Barack Obama and prosecutors at the Justice Department to treat Tsarnaev, at least initially, as an enemy combatant under military law – and without certain protections such as an attorney – rather than through the civilian courts as a criminal suspect, where his route begins with a reading of the Miranda rights. The designation as an “enemy combatant” has precedence and would be appropriate here, Graham and others say.

The hospitalized Tsarnaev is in federal custody, and prosecutors are preparing terrorism and possibly other charges against him, a Justice Department official told CNN. He could also face state-level murder charges, but the death penalty would not be an option under Massachusetts law. Federal authorities could pursue the death penalty.

Twelve hours after capture Tsarnaev had not been read those Miranda rights, which include the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney regardless of financial circumstances and the warning that any statements can be used to aid his prosecution.

A Justice Department official said federal prosecutors would use the public safety exception to the Miranda rule, which allows investigators to question a suspect before apprising him of his rights when they believe there is an imminent public safety threat. Federal officials called in the interagency High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, which includes investigators from the FBI and CIA who specialize in collecting intelligence from terrorism suspects, to question Tsarnaev.

After the Friday capture, Obama commended authorities’ efforts and said the surviving Tsarnaev would move through the court system.
"When a tragedy like this happens, with public safety at risk and the stakes so high, it's important that we do this right,” he said. “That's why we have investigations. That's why we relentlessly gather the facts. That's why we have courts. And that's why we take care not to rush to judgment - not about the motivations of these individuals; certainly not about entire groups of people.”

In addition to Graham, Republicans Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, joined by Republican Rep. Peter King of New York, commended investigators for not reading Tsarnaev the Miranda rights but said they were concerned investigators would soon do so.

“We have concerns that limiting this investigation to 48 hours and exclusively relying on the public safety exception to Miranda, could very well be a national security mistake. It could severely limit our ability to gather critical information about future attacks from this suspect,” they said.

Separately, King said Friday night after the suspect was taken into custody, “The fact that these terrorists were from overseas, living legally in our country for a period of time, and the fact that there was no federal intelligence or chatter prior to the marathon bombings demonstrates once again the Islamist terrorist threat to our country from within our borders.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia and a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, issued his own statement saying, "This is not an ordinary criminal case, and a brief interrogation under that exception is wholly insufficient. Our courts, including the Supreme Court, allow detaining and interrogating terrorism suspects as enemy combatants, regardless of citizenship, and there is no reason to not follow that precedent here."

Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security and CNN national security analyst, said Saturday that to debate the issue was “absurd.”

“I think it’s an important statement especially after what this city went through to say, ‘Yup, now you’re just a normal criminal and we’re just going to put you through the process,’ ” she said, adding that the initial use of the public safety exemption was justified.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan and the Armed Services Committee chairman, noted an enemy combatant declaration could be made under the 2001 war declaration of Congress, which authorized action against al Qaeda, the Taliban and related groups.

"I am not aware of any evidence so far that the Boston suspect is part of any organized group, let alone al Qaeda, the Taliban, or one of their affiliates," he wrote Saturday in a statement which appeared to rebut the GOP senators' statement.

"In the absence of such evidence I know of no legal basis for his detention as an enemy combatant. To hold the suspect as an enemy combatant under these circumstances would be contrary to our laws and may even jeopardize our efforts to prosecute him for his crimes."

The American Civil Liberties Union said the U.S. should “not waver from our tried-and-true justice system, even in the most difficult of times. Denial of rights is un-American and will only make it harder to obtain fair convictions.’

"Every criminal defendant is entitled to be read Miranda rights,” the group said in a statement. “The public safety exception should be read narrowly. It applies only when there is a continued threat to public safety and is not an open-ended exception to the Miranda rule. Additionally, every criminal defendant has a right to be brought before a judge and to have access to counsel.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said investigators were appropriately using the public safety exception but should not declare him an enemy combatant.

“This is not a foreign national caught on an enemy battlefield, but an American citizen arrested on American soil,” he said in a statement. “The Justice Department has demonstrated a far greater ability to successfully prosecute suspected terrorists in federal courts than the military commissions have thus far been able to show. Nothing must be done to compromise the public safety, the ability of prosecutors to seek justice for the victims or our constitutional principles.”

In recent examples of domestic terrorism handled by the Obama administration, individuals initially questioned under the public safety exemption were later tried in civilian court rather than held as enemy combatants. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Faisal Shahzad were tried and convicted of their foiled or failed bombing attempts – Abdulmutallab for plotting to blow up an airplane on Christmas in 2009 and Shahzad for his 2010 attempt to detonate a bomb in Times Square.

“The FBI has been very successful even after giving the Miranda warnings to these subjects to get them to talk about what they’ve done, to get them to cooperate,” said Tom Fuentes, a former assistant director of the FBI and CNN law enforcement analyst.

The interrogations, he said, would be focused on public safety because “we don’t know if they’ve placed additional devices, booby traps or have a separate cache of weapons and explosive material somewhere in the Boston area.”

“They really, to be frank, they don’t need his confession to prosecute and convict him,” he said. “There’s going to be more evidence in this case than you’d have in almost every other case that you have because they’re on video, you have the forensics, you have these murders of police. There is … no need for the Miranda warning in this case. ”

It was not clear how long the public safety exemption could be used. Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a 2010 memo the FBI believed “that in light of the magnitude and complexity of the threat often posed by terrorist organizations, particularly international terrorist organizations, and the nature of their attacks, the circumstances surrounding an arrest of an operational terrorist may warrant significantly more extensive public safety interrogation than would be permissible in an ordinary criminal case.”

The brothers were immigrants to the U.S. from the Russian Caucasus, an area that includes Chechnya and Dagestan. Tsarnaev was born in Kyrgystan, came to the United States in 2002, and became a citizen on September 11, 2012. His older brother was not a U.S. citizen but was in the country legally.
Title: Re: Miranda Rights for Terrorists?
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on April 21, 2013, 04:21:29 am
My off the cuff feelings of this are if you commit an act of terrorism against the U.S., I would equate it with the level of treason and should be handled in the most effective way possible. If that means not giving miranda rights, so be it. I'm not talking about someone simply killing people, but having the kind of track record these guys had with anti-U.S. views and purposefully targeting a mass of people to bring national attention to their views and actions and to make a statement.

That being said, this kind of case is still pretty new for us, so it's too soon for me to tell with any real certainty if my views will stay the same. Even if someone is a natural born citizen, I think they should be forfeit their rights when they do something like this as it's an attack not just on people, but an attack on the country itself. You can spout anti-American drival all day long, and that's your right (though, be prepared to be watched for just this reason), but free speech doesn't extend to blowing people up to get your point across.
Title: Re: Miranda Rights for Terrorists?
Post by: Alsek on April 21, 2013, 09:31:04 am
Kobuk,  i agree with you 100%.  He's a US citizen.  Denying anyone their right to a trial and attorney,  especially a US citizen is completely terrifying.  Actually,  it's nothing short of petrifying.  How have we come so far?  Ted Bundy killed 30 to 36 people that we know of and he still got a trial.  This boy is suspected of killing 3.

The United States Rule of law is this:  Until you are proven guilty,  you are innocent.  You are a suspect.  You have a RIGHT to be tried by a court of your peers.  Rights don't exist for when situations are normal.  When situations are normal they're just called, "common sense." We have rights so that we don't forget ourselves in stressful situations  and resort to lynch mob mentality.  We are supposed to be better than that.

Try him as a criminal.  If he's guilty,  convict him.
Title: Re: Miranda Rights for Terrorists?
Post by: Yip on April 21, 2013, 03:05:01 pm
The idea that there are people out there that would like to attack this county is scary. Sure. So I can understand the desire to clamp down on terrorism. However, you know what's a thousand times scarier than terrorism?  A government that can simply declare that a person may be a terrorist threat and therefore they don't have to follow regulations dealing with that person.  That to me is far far worse.

Here we have them using a "public safety exemption" to withhold this guy's rights, but to me withholding a citizen's rights like that is a far greater threat to public safety than anything that withholding his rights may possibly give you.
Title: Re: Miranda Rights for Terrorists?
Post by: Chiscringle on April 21, 2013, 04:06:19 pm
I think that Senator is grandstanding.  He can't possibly WANT to set a precedent where the legislative branch simply allows the executive to suspend the Constitution at will.  If the president actually did this, then we may as well not have one since he can ignore it whenever he wants.  Agree with Vararam, doing this would pose a much greater danger than the terrorists can.  It was bad enough when he was remotely executing a citizen in another country using a drone strike and no warrant or conviction.  To actually call foreign combatant on a citizen on American soil with no obvious ties to a geopolitical enemy would be to make it possible to imprison or execute anyone.  There's no legal definition of 'terrorist.'
Title: Re: Miranda Rights for Terrorists?
Post by: Acton on April 22, 2013, 03:43:06 pm
I some reservations about Miranda Rights, but the issue for me is  there is not going to be a speedy trial and a trip to the gallows.
Title: Re: Miranda Rights for Terrorists?
Post by: Old Rabbit on April 24, 2013, 12:02:46 pm
I imagine most people who comment terrorism have a better knowledge
of their rights than most of us. Wouldn't it be a part of their training to
know how they would expect to be treated?

So I doubt the Miranda warning means much to them as they already
know how they plan to re-act to the justice or injustice system they
expect to encounter.

This aside I would agree we should grant US citizen terrorists their
legal rights. Would we have every suspect treated guilty first? I am
sure we would not. Also the world is watching to see if we are as
good as our word. 

Alien terrorists should be considered possible combatants, but still treated
with reasonable respect as we would expect other countries to do the same
for one of our citizens.