There were explosions *during *the chase.
More to the point, it is still unclear that the two acted alone. I have no problem with the police trying to find out if they have accomplices laying low that plan to come out when the heat dies down. (I doubt it, but I don’t have a problem having the police ask the question.) They have enough evidence, (video, confession to the hijacked SUV owner, similar munitions in their apartment, etc.), to get a conviction without relying on self-incrimination. If they stick to trying to find out whether the brothers were involved with a larger cell, I would think that that would qualify under the “Public Safety” exception.
As of two hours ago, there are reports that the surviving brother is talking. What that means with a (possibly self-inflicted) gunshot to the throat, I am not sure.
I think the suspect can communicate - which is broader than just talking.
Also I’ll add, once charged, he’ll be appointed a lawyer if he doesn’t have his own. Presumably the public safety exception would be moot after that, assuming he listens to his lawyers.
He’s not talking. He’s communicating by writing. He can’t speak yet due to the throat wounds.
While I don’t agree with him in full, I think Condescending Robot has a point with merit.
I’m going to try to phrase that point in terms that make sense to me, and then argue against it (or perhaps, make an excuse for ignoring it). But even though I argue against it, I admit it’s a good point, and needs to be balanced.
The point is, anything you say without knowing your rights shouldn’t be used against you in a trial.
That point applies on two levels. The first is whether the law is reasonable. The second is whether it should be applied in this case.
First, about the law. It’s a reasonable objection to the law. Not because we shouldn’t question someone before we know we have enough evidence to hang him, that’s silly as pointed out above. But when we’re worried about saving the lives of any number of innocent people, whether we have enough evidence to hang the guy is unimportant. Even if he gets off scott free because we don’t have any evidence, we need to ask those important questions and ensure public safety. Hanging him should be our last consideration.
But if I was responsible for writing the law, I would ask myself: might some stupid officials fuss over mirandizing to ensure a conviction, when they should be focusing on bigger issues? I might grant the 1984 exception on that basis, even though I don’t think it’s ideal.
Now to the current situation. If officials in charge of the suspect don’t do everything possible to ensure public safety as a first priority, they’d be amiss in their duties. We don’t have all the facts, and it’s possible that there are other bombs. Unlikely perhaps, but no stone should be left unturned.
But, despite the lattitude the law gives, officials should limit themselves to thwarting risk. The law gives more lattitude than I like, but in the end it’s up to the courts to decide whether the intent of the law was followed. As a judge, I’d be inclined to disregard any testimony that wasn’t relevant to a risk analysis.
Hopefully, they won’t need to use any of his testimony to convict him. Then this will be a moot question … until the next time.
Regardless, while I disagree with Robot’s conclusions, I have to admit that he has a valid and important point: that the clause intended to protect the public can be used to deny the rights of the accused, and all the good intent of the lawmakers can be disregarded in the event of a trial.
A good example of the latter is RICOH. I remember objections that it was too broad, and the proponents all cried out how it would NEVER be used for anything but serious organized crime.
How long did THAT last?
They won’t. And I think this has been resolved anyway- the government sounds confident these two were acting by themselves and the surviving bomber has now been charged, which means he’s aware of his rights and has met (briefly) with a court appointed attorney.
I don’t quite understand the idea of Mirandizing.
Suppose someone is Mirandized, and then keeps on talking to the police without a lawyer. Leaving aside the few people who actually want to go to prison, it seems to me that the arrested person couldn’t have really understood the warning.
I could understand the position that the police shouldn’t be able to interrogate suspects. I wouldn’t agree with it, but I’d understand it. But I can’t understand warning a person that what they say will be used against them in court, and then allowing the person to ignore the warning. Only an person deficient in intelligence and/or common sense would continue to talk to the police under those circumstances. So, continuing to question a suspect, without a lawyer present, after Mirandizing, is taking advantage of the mentally deficient.
As for what we should do instead, police questioning should be completely recorded (or videotaped, as recording wouldn’t work in this case). Then, judge and jury can decide if a confession was coerced. This makes more sense to me than having the police give a defendant five sentences of good legal advice and then hope the defendant lacks sufficient sense to take the advice.
As for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, if this case follows a common pattern in criminal dyads, his culpability may be a lot less than most Americans think. But, because of massive predjudicial pre-trial publicity, all the Mirandizing in the world would not do one iota for the cause of getting him a fair trial. Too many potential jurors have already made up their minds.
Not necessarily. For some crimes, telling people why is the point. This includes civil disobedience but also some terrorism cases - for example, the Times Square bomber wanted to make it clear that his motive for the attempted bombing was US attacks on Pakistani civilians.
Not necessarily. People typically either try to please the police (who are very good at convincing you that talking is in your best interests) or they think that they can outsmart the police.
Defense attorneys argued for years to video tape interrogations and thought that it would prove that the police were coercing people. When videotaping started, they saw that didn’t happen. What they saw was people who thought that they were in control of themselves during the interrogation and get twisted into knots by professionals who are way better at interrogation that the average person is at answering questions.
Some people say that they are too good as many people have falsely confessed under the (legal and non-coercive) pressure.
It is much smarter to remain silent, innocent or guilty, but it is very difficult. We naturally want to communicate with our fellow man, even if it is to lie our way out of trouble.
Dave Cullen, who’s article you linked to would strenuously disagree with the idea that somehow Dzhokhar was “less culpable” even if they did become a “criminal dyad”, and people who read the article you linked to will note that Cullen strenuously argues against assuming that they were a Dyad like Klebold and Harris(the infamous Columbine killers) and suggests doing so when we still have so little information is extremely questionable.
He also points out that if they were a Dyad that they would hardly be following a common pattern since they were brothers and Dzhokhar actually killed his older brother.
For those who have not read Cullen’s fantastic book, Columbine, I’d highly recommend it since it’s a great lesson in A) not jumping to conclusions about events and B) not allowing our own preconceptions, biases to color our analysis.
http://www.amazon.com/Columbine-Dave-Cullen/dp/0446546925/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366764192&sr=8-1&keywords=Columbine
The book, written ten years after Columbine reveals that almost every common perception about the Columbine massacre was and what “lessons” could be drawn from it were utterly wrong. Harris and Klebold weren’t actually geeky losers who’d been horribly bullied and were striking back at the “popular” kids or the “jocks”. They weren’t goths, members of “the trench coat mafia”, fans of Marilyn Manson. They weren’t victims of bad parenting, neglect, social ostracism. Marilyn Manson’s famous suggestion in Bowling for Columbine that he’d “sit down and listen to them” would have done nothing since they were experts and manipulating and using adults. In fact, the massacre wasn’t even intended to be a shooting. They wanted to blow up the entire school and envisioned killing hundreds and later thousands, not merely a dozen.
Most significantly, Cullen strongly advises against comparing Columbine to other school shootings because it’s so incredibly atypical.
If we’re not careful, years from now, people may look back at people’s initial reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing and think, wow, people really jumped to conclusions about them.
I think you are mistaken in thinking that the Miranda warning is that clear. Yes, it tells you that you have the right to not say anything, but it does nothing to tell you that it’s a better idea to not say anything. And this is intentional. The point is to inform the suspect of his rights, not give him legal advice.
I’ve heard the Miranda warning many times on television, but it took someone flat out telling me that talking to the police was a bad idea. Before that, I had always thought that, since I was innocent, I didn’t have to worry.
This is what I was going to say as well - good post.
Heck, I’ve had a guilty guy (Yes, I am certain of it, I was an eyewitness) standing next to me at the booking counter volunteering that he was transporting the meth for someone else, it wasn’t even his. I was was nice enough to tell him it’d be wise to shut the hell up, he looked at me like I was a rude bastard. :rolleyes:
There are a lot of interesting potential consequences shaping up here, not that I like any of them. If you saw Putin’s statement yesterday, you can see he wants the U.S. to stop criticizing him about the way Russia deals with Chechnya and I’m sure he wants some help in dealing with militant Muslims there. Some Republicans in Congress want to hold hearings about the bombings, and that’s appropriate on its own, but of course the main objective for some of them is going to be finding a moment they can Benghazify. Not every Republican has been critical of the performance of the intelligence agencies from what I’ve seen, so I guess the level of outrage depends on their constituencies.
So far there’s been a lot of reporting on what the FBI and CIA knew about Tamerlan Tsarnaev and which databases he was in (there were three) and why nothing else was done about him or done with the information the agencies received. The FBI interviewed some of his relatives but didn’t find anything that concerned them, and when they (and later the CIA) asked Russian intelligence for more information, they never heard back. He was in some large databases but nothing as specific as the no-fly list, and I think a note about him leaving the U.S. was missed because of a different spelling of his name. That’s frustrating because it suggests the intelligence establishment doesn’t a have access to the kind of technology that Google uses to ask you if you spelled something wrong. Tsarnaev was dropped from some of those watch lists after a set amount of time in which the FBI didn’t find any new information that raised concerns about him. Are those limits going to be changed or abandoned?
I mentioned this in another thread, but I get the sinking feeling the media is just going to cover the shit out of these two lunatics. There’s no point in doing so. Buried pretty deep in that ‘Parents of murderers say crazy things’ story is this, which seems awfully significant: “And while the parents insisted that his visit was focused on trying to get a passport, visiting relatives and helping his father, they confirmed that he worshiped occasionally at a mosque popular among Salafist Muslims.” Oops.