Republicans want Boston bombing suspect treated as enemy combatant, sparking
Miranda debate
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
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
==========================================
(F)AIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this
message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to
these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed
within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with
"Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.
The principle of "Fair Use" was established as law by Section 107 of The
Copyright Act of 1976. "Fair Use" legally eliminates the need to obtain
permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials
if the purposes of display include "criticism, comment, news reporting,
teaching, scholarship, and research." Section 107 establishes four criteria
for determining whether the use of a work in any particular case qualifies
as a "fair use". A work used does not necessarily have to satisfy all four
criteria to qualify as an instance of "fair use". Rather, "fair use" is
determined by the overall extent to which the cited work does or does not
substantially satisfy the criteria in their totality. If you wish to use
copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you
must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS
PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
No comments:
Post a Comment