Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Monday, April 22, 2013

Imminent Threat And Miranda

A lot of pixels are being spilled over what the impact is of not reading Tsarnaev his Miranda rights.

A lot of it is based on speculation and assumptions of worse case motives on the part of the DOJ.  Libertarians - especially on the left - are basically assuming that they are waterboarding Tsarnaev on his hospital bed.  Oh, I'm sorry, did I create a straw man?

Anyway, my main question is this: are any of the questions that they ask Tsarnaev under the "imminent threat" exception admissible in court?  And even if they are, are they necessary?

Finding out if there are other bombs and co-conspirators seems a good idea to me.

However, I hope they Mirandize him as soon as possible to keep Lindsey Graham's request for a special flight to Gitmo from getting any more traction.

Dzohkhar Tsarnaev is a criminal who killed or was complicit in the killing of four Bostonians and the maiming of dozens more.  Today in Seattle, there was a shooting that left five people dead.  Five, in case your math is rusty, is more than four.

Treat Tsarnaev as the criminal he is, not the monster he wishes he might have been.

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