Sunday, April 21, 2013

Republicans want Boston bombing suspect treated as enemy combatant, sparking Miranda debate

 

Republicans want Boston bombing suspect treated as enemy combatant, sparking

Miranda debate

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/20/republicans-want-boston-bombing-suspect-treated-en/?page=all#pagebreak

 

 

By Susan Crabtree

 

The Washington Times

 

Saturday, April 20, 2013

 

Key Republicans are calling on the Obama administration to declare captured

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old suspect in the bombings at the Boston

Marathon, an enemy combatant subject to the laws of war so intelligence

officials can continue to interrogate him for as long as they deem

necessary.

 

Authorities captured Tsarnaev in Watertown, Mass. huddled and bleeding

profusely in a private boat. He was hospitalized Saturday after being

further wounded in a firefight with police Friday.

 

SEE RELATED: Boston police chief: Bombers had more attacks planned;

explosives may be out there

 

Federal law enforcement officials are invoking the public-safety exception

and will pursue their investigation into the Boston bombings for the at

least the next 48 without reading Mr. Tsarnaev's his Miranda rights against

self-incrimination.

 

That decision by the Obama administration is reviving a contentious and

constitutionally charged debate over how best to handle interrogations and

terrorism cases under U.S. laws governing the criminal justice system and

the law of war.

 

The FBI says the exception permits law enforcement to engage in a "limited

and focused unwarned interrogation" and and allows the government to

introduce the suspect's statements during interrogation as direct evidence

in any subsequent criminal trial.

 

But Republican Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Kelly Ayotte, as well as

Rep. Peter King, argue that relying on the public safety exception is a

national security mistake.

 

The group of GOP lawmakers argues that the blasts at the end of the Monday's

marathon that killed three and injured more than 170 people were clearly an

attempt to terrorize a major American city, and the accused perpetrators

should be treated as enemy combatants, not common criminals attempting to

profit from a criminal enterprise.

 

"The suspect, based upon his actions, clearly is a good candidate for enemy

combatant status," they said in a statement. "We do not want this suspect to

remain silent."

 

SEE RELATED: Police capture Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar

Tsarnaev in Watertown

 

While the group applauded the Obama administration's decision to have the

High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG question Mr. Tsarnaev, they

worry that that the temporary time frame the public safety exception to the

Miranda law provides will be far too short to allow the type of questioning

that needs to occur.

 

The HIG, which President Obama created in 2009, is made up of agents from

the FBI, CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, who follow strict policies on

acceptable interrogation practices and work together to share the

information across their multiple intelligence agencies.

 

"We are encouraged our High value detainee interrogation team (HIG) is now

involved and working to gather intelligence about how these terrible acts

were committed and possibility of future attacks," he said. "A decision to

not read Miranda rights to the suspect was sound and in our national

security interests."

 

"However, 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," they continued. "It could severely

limit our ability to gather critical information about future attacks from

this suspect."

 

The American Civil Liberties Union quickly weighed in on the opposite side

of the Miranda argument Saturday, arguing that invoking the rare

public-safety exception triggered by the need to protect the public from

immediate danger is only a temporary solution.

 

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero told the Boston Globe that the

exception applies only when there's a continued threat to public safety and

is not an pen-ended exception to the Miranda rule.

 

"The public-safety exception to Miranda should be a narrow and limited one,

and it would be wholly inappropriate and unconstitutional to use it to

create the case against the suspect," Mr. Romero said. "The public safety

exception would be meaningless if interrogations are given an open-ended

time horizon."

 

Requirements on law enforcement officials to read ordinary criminals their

Miranda rights come from a 1966 Supreme Court case. In order to protect

against self-incrimination, police must first read suspects their rights if

they want to use statements at trial that a defendant made while in custody.

 

The focus right now, the Republican lawmakers countered, should be on

gathering intelligence from the suspect, not on a future domestic criminal

trial that may take years to complete.

 

"We hope the Obama administration will consider the enemy combatant option

because it is allowed by national security statutes and U.S. Supreme Court

decisions," they added.

 

Following the statement, the group of four Republicans also laid out the

case for the administration relying on the law of war in their treatment of

Mr. Tsarnaev, pointing to Supreme Court-tested elements of the military

commission law Mr. Graham wrote and shepherded through the Senate.

 

According to that law, American citizens who attack the homeland or

collaborate with U.S. enemies can be held as enemy combatants and are not

entitled to Miranda rights or an attorney. The questioning of an enemy

combatant for national security purposes has no limit or scope.

 

"In a case like this it could take weeks to prepare the questions are needed

to be asked and months before intelligence gathering is completed," the

lawmakers argue.

 

Because the suspect is an American citizen, any future trial would be in the

civilian courts, not through a military commission, a provision Mr. Graham

personally authored.

 

Read more:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/20/republicans-want-boston-bomb

ing-suspect-treated-en/#ixzz2R6nKdM4d

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