The FBI and the rest of a crack U.S. interrogation team wanted to question the
remaining marathon bombing suspect in his Boston hospital room without his
lawyer because of what they fear: undiscovered explosive devices that could
still kill and possible accomplices who might decide to carry out more terror.
But how do you get around the U.S. Supreme Court's Miranda requirements for a
lawyer and the right to remain silent, the constitutional guarantee against
forced self-incrimination?
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is an ethnic Chechen but a naturalized U.S. citizen
arrested on U.S. soil.
He was Mirandized by a federal magistrate only 60 hours after being taken into
custody. He reportedly told investigators quickly, before being Mirandized --
writing on a tablet because of a neck wound -- there were no more explosive
devices and he and his brother acted alone. He apparently went silent after
being read his rights.
A Supreme Court ruling in 1984, far less famous than the Miranda ruling in 1966,
allows law enforcement to question a suspect without a Miranda warning when
"concern for public safety" is involved.
Whether this exception applies to Tsarnaev the courts and ultimately the Supreme
Court may have to decide.
Tsarnaev was formally charged last week with conspiring to use a weapon of mass
destruction and "malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive
device resulting in death."
Tsarnaev had his initial court appearance from his hospital room, the U.S.
Justice Department said.
The statutes under which Tsarnaev was charged allow for life in prison or the
death penalty upon conviction.
The two Boston Marathon bombings killed three people and injured more than 260.
After the brothers were identified from surveillance cameras, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
was injured during a confrontation with police that left his brother, Tamerlan
Tsarnaev, 26, dead. The younger Tsarnaev was injured a second time as police
closed in on him later in the day. Officials suggested he may have shot himself
in the throat but later said he had no weapon when he was arrested.
Officials also said the older brother may have been killed because the younger
brother ran over him in an attempt to get away in a stolen sport-utility
vehicle.
During the hunt for the suspects, the brothers were suspected in the shooting
death of Sean Collier, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer,
in his patrol car.
The younger Tsarnaev was captured after hiding for hours in a boat stored in a
backyard in Watertown, a Boston suburb.
But what about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Miranda rights?
The 6-3 Miranda ruling in 1966, written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, said the
prosecution "may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory,
stemming from questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person
has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in
any significant way, unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards
effective to secure the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination."
Warren said the "atmosphere and environment of incommunicado interrogation as it
exists today is inherently intimidating and works to undermine the privilege
against self-incrimination. Unless adequate preventive measures are taken to
