BY BRITTANY SHARKEY
brittsharkey@gmail.com
On Friday, the country waited with apprehension for the capture and eventual arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the remaining suspect sought in connection with the Boson Marathon bombings.
After police killed Dzhokhar’s brother and likely accomplice in a shootout the previous morning, it was hoped Dzhokhar would be captured alive. If he was taken alive, Tsarnaev would perhaps be able to provide some insight into the motivations behind the horrific bombings that killed three, left 170 wounded and have again challenged our notions of safety and security.
After his capture, it became known that Dzhokhar would be questioned by an elite interrogation team without being given his Miranda warning. The Miranda warning is a speech that anyone who’s ever seen a television show featuring arrests is familiar with. It’s a legally required warning that informs a suspect taken into custody of his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and his Sixth Amendment right to have a lawyer present.
While not mandated in the Constitution, the Miranda warning arises from a 1966 Supreme Court case in which a suspected criminal made statements to investigators without being aware of his rights under the Constitution. The holding of Miranda then put the burden on law enforcement officials to advise all suspects being held in custody of their rights before questioning them. In the event that a police officer doesn’t read a suspect his or her Miranda rights, any information gleaned from that testimony is inadmissible in court.
Over the years, the Miranda doctrine has evolved to make room for what is known as the public safety exception. Law enforcement officials can ask a suspect questions without giving them a Miranda warning if they believe there is some kind of imminent danger, such as if the suspect has a gun or explosives within easy reach.
However, the evolution of Miranda and the public safety exception has hit a rocky road when it comes to the issue of terrorism. In 2009, a suspected terrorist confessed to his role in a plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airplane while in the hospital and on painkillers. He was not read his Miranda rights. However, a federal judge ruled that this confession was a valid extension of the public safety exception and allowed that testimony to be used in trial.
In this case, Miranda has been stretched too far. If police officers wanted to question Dzhokhar about potential explosives either on his person or concealed in some other location, that would have constituted a valid extension of the public safety exception to Miranda. But a planned full questioning with a highly skilled interrogation team is a shade too far.
We have Dzhokhar alive and in custody. We now have a chance to find out what could have possibly motivated this crime and subject him to our criminal justice system. But an overzealous extension of Miranda could jeopardize that. By extending Miranda this far, there is now the possibility that a judge could find that this was not a valid extension of the public safety doctrine and rule Dzhokar’s confessions inadmissible. Arguably no judge wants to be known for letting the Boston Marathon bomber go on a technicality, but the door to that possibility has been opened.
The man is chained to a hospital bed, weak with injury. He’s not going anywhere. Take the time, do it right and make sure that he never walks the streets again. The victims and people of Boston have had their lives upended; they deserve the 30 seconds it would take to read him his rights.
Brittany Sharkey is a third-year law student from Oceanside, Calif. She graduated from NYU in 2010 with a degree in politics. Follow her on Twitter @brittanysharkey.
