Saturday, April 20, 2013

Marathon Bombing Suspect Denied Miranda Warnings

The Current Occupant has decided to drive a truck through US v. Quarles (1984) by interrogating Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev in custody without first giving him Miranda warnings. Tsarnaev is a US citizen of Chechen heritage and lies gravely wounded in hospital unable to speak at present. His older brother, also a suspect, was killed attempting to elude police*. Quarles is the Supreme Court decision which created the "public safety" exception to the reading of Miranda rights prior to custodial interrogation. According to the FBI's own legal digest website, the Quarles decision only allows a government agent to inquire into matters which directly bear on the imminent safety of the public or arresting officials. In Quarles, the suspect was arrested in a store and asked where his pistol was before being read his rights against self-incrimination. An early 3rd Circuit case following Quarles, decided a hospitalized bombing suspect was properly asked how to diffuse pipe bombs discovered in a black bag in his apartment without Miranda warnings being given to him. The Quarles majority made clear any other custodial interrogation outside the immediate necessity of securing the public's or arresting officers' safety violates Miranda; any incriminating statements thereby obtained would be inadmissible in court. The head of the ACLU, Anthony D. Romero has already warned that any interrogation of Tsarnaev without the Miranda advisement outside imminent dangers such as the location of hidden active bombs would be unconstitutional. The temptation to go beyond the boundaries of the exception must be very great since Tsarnaev could provide valuable intelligence on the Chechen diaspora's involvement in international terror networks.

US v. Miranda has long been a thorn in the side of law enforcement, and conservatives on the federal bench have been seeking ways to limit its application or scope absent an outright overruling of the monumental precedent from 1966. In 2009, a airliner bombing suspect was questioned for fifty minutes while sedated before undergoing surgery. Miranda rights were not read to him until after he woke up. Nevertheless, the federal judge in his case refused to suppress his statements to FBI agents before surgery concluding the interrogation was a justified use of the "public safety" exception. Farouk Abdulmutallab was convicted of attempting to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner and sentenced to life imprisonment. Subsequently, the FBI issued a policy memo in 2010 encouraging its agents to adopt a broad interpretation of public safety related questions in terrorism cases. Combating terrorism has given additional impetus to erode constitutional protections for the accused as the current decision to deny advising a US citizen of his right against self-incrimination demonstrates.

*US Person finds interesting that the older brother, Tamerlan, returned to Dagestan for six months last year. He came to the attention of Russia's Federal Security Bureau which feared he could be a risk and requested information from the FBI concerning the visitor, but the FBI could find nothing derogatory in its files. Apparently the Russian information request was considered routine since it did not prompt a US follow-up inquiry into his activities. Both Chechnya and Dagestan have active Islamist separatist movements; Tamerlan was considered a devout believer. Tamerlan's US citizenship application was still pending, derailed by a domestic violence complaint, when he was killed by pursuing police. The US and Russia began cooperating on combatting terror in 1994. President Putin called the US President to express his condolences for the people killed and hobbled in Boston.