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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRepublicans want Boston bombing suspect treated as enemy combatant, sparking Miranda debate
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.
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. Tsarnaevs 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 suspects statements during interrogation as direct evidence in any subsequent criminal trial.
More at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/20/republicans-want-boston-bombing-suspect-treated-en/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS
appleannie1
(5,062 posts)it to fit their needs they think they can just bypass it.
Heather MC
(8,084 posts)Republicans are a waste of space.
elleng
(130,773 posts)'predicted' it in one of his statements, as I recall.
The Sushi Bandit
(5,560 posts)even if he says he does... this guy is an American citizen.
Stretch714
(90 posts)aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)The U.S. can revoke your U.S. citizenship within five years if you join certain subversive or terrorist groups (among other reasons). But you enjoy full Constitutional rights as a "person" if you have been inspected and admitted to the United States, so even green card permanent residents enjoy those rights.
KharmaTrain
(31,706 posts)...are we at war with Chechnya or Kyrzgystan? Lots of assumptions and profiling going on here. I'm kinda a fan of due process...silly me!
Warpy
(111,175 posts)Justice
(7,185 posts)GitRDun
(1,846 posts)He presided over Richard Reid's, aka, "The Shoe Bomber", trial. His statement after doling out the life sentence says it all for me:
"This is the sentence that is provided for by our statues. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain this to you.
We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here. And I say that to everyone with the utmost respect.
Here in this court , where we deal with individuals as individuals, and care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out for justice, you are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist.
And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.
So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders.
In a very real sense Trooper Santigo had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and he said you're no big deal. You're no big deal.
What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today? I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing. And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you. But as I search this entire record it comes as close to understanding as I know.
It seems to me you hate the one thing that is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose.
Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely.
It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their, their representation of you before other judges. We are about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden, pay any price, to preserve our freedoms.
Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.
The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged, and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.
See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. You know it always will.
Custody Mr. Officer. Stand him down."
Why the heck would we need a tribunal?
annabanana
(52,791 posts)It was made up as cover to treat American citizens as enemy soldiers on a battlefield. It is an un-appealable label, subject to no one for review.
A person can be so declared by fiat and has no recourse.
LuvNewcastle
(16,838 posts)Obama can send out a drone to zap him. USA!, USA!..........
Rex
(65,616 posts)They still need to admit to their former leader being a warmongering criminal in need of the Hague! UNTIL THEN, they call all go SUCK lemons!
fleur-de-lisa
(14,624 posts)that's reason enough for me to be against it. When was the last time they were on the right side of anything?