The Glade 4.0

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

Why exactly aren't we reading him his rights? Is this a ploy to leave the "enemy combatant" classification open as a possibility?

Public safety exception

The Miranda rule is not, however, absolute. An exception exists in cases of "public safety". This limited and case-specific exception allows certain unadvised statements (given without Miranda warnings) to be admissible into evidence at trial when they were elicited in circumstances where there was great danger to public safety.[8]

The public safety exception derives from New York v. Quarles (1984), a case in which the Supreme Court considered the admissibility of a statement elicited by a police officer who apprehended a rape suspect who was thought to be carrying a firearm. The arrest took place in a crowded grocery store. When the officer arrested the suspect, he found an empty shoulder holster, handcuffed the suspect, and asked him where the gun was. The suspect nodded in the direction of the gun (which was near some empty cartons) and said, "The gun is over there". The Supreme Court found that such an unadvised statement was admissible in evidence because "[i]n a kaleidoscopic situation such as the one confronting these officers, where spontaneity rather than adherence to a police manual is necessarily the order of the day, the application of the exception we recognize today should not be made to depend on post hoc findings at a suppression hearing concerning the subjective motivation of the police officer".[9] Thus, the jurisprudential rule of Miranda must yield in "a situation where concern for public safety must be paramount to adherence to the literal language of the prophylactic rules enunciated in Miranda".

The rule of Miranda is not, therefore, absolute and can be a bit more elastic in cases of public safety.[8] Under this exception, to be admissible in the government's direct case at a trial, the questioning must not be "actually compelled by police conduct which overcame his will to resist," and must be focused and limited, involving a situation "in which police officers ask questions reasonably prompted by a concern for the public safety."[10]

In 2010, the Federal Bureau of Investigation encouraged agents to use a broad interpretation of public safety-related questions in terrorism cases, stating that the "magnitude and complexity" of terrorist threats justified "a significantly more extensive public safety interrogation without Miranda warnings than would be permissible in an ordinary criminal case," continuing to list such examples as: "questions about possible impending or coordinated terrorist attacks; the location, nature and threat posed by weapons that might pose an imminent danger to the public; and the identities, locations, and activities or intentions of accomplices who may be plotting additional imminent attacks." A Department of Justice spokesman described this position as not altering the constitutional right, but as clarifying existing flexibility in the rule.[11]

My suspicion is that they feel they have more than enough hard evidence to convict him without needing any statements from him directly, so it's all about info gathering around other possible threats.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Why exactly aren't we reading him his rights? Is this a ploy to leave the "enemy combatant" classification open as a possibility?

Just a minor aside ...

Fourth Amendment anyone?

Miranda is there for the purpose of the protecting the rights of the person arrested....and it has nothing to do with questioning and everything to do with admissibility.

I was so frustrated that in all the endlessly repeating coverage on Friday, not one of the major networks (at least that I saw) chose to at least fill some time with a meaningful discussion of the Fourth Amendment problems raised by the house-to-house searches.

Now, thus far, I’m actually not that worked up about Miranda rights (though I may get there soon). As Orin Kerr explains, the public safety exception is a legally recognized law, and Miranda itself only limits what can be admitted as testimony against Dzhokhar in his trial (I’m betting he’ll plead guilty in any case). The government appears to have so much evidence against him in any case, any confession he makes will likely not be necessary to convict him.

...But the big issue, in my opinion, is presentment, whether he is brought before a judge within 48 hours. In addition to stretching Miranda, the government has also been holding and interrogating suspects for periods — up to two weeks for American citizens and far longer for non-citizens — before they see a judge. Not only does this postpone the time when they will be given a lawyer whether they ask or not (because judges are going to assign one), but it gives the government an uninterrupted period of time to use soft coercion to get testimony and other kinds of cooperation.

...What the government did by delaying presentment in [the cases of Faisal Shahzad and Manssor Arbabsiar, discussed in the linked article] was to afford itself a 2 week period of oversight free interrogation. And there are at least hints — hints that, because both men ultimately plead out, we’ll never learn more about — that the interrogations used some of the same techniques we’re supposed to have left behind [i.e. coercion via threats of reprisals against family members and sleep/food deprivation, as discussed in the linked article].

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

What's all this horseshit discussion about prosecuting him as an enemy combatant? US citizen on US soil? WTF

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

What's all this horseshit discussion about prosecuting him as an enemy combatant? US citizen on US soil? WTF

At least they didn't take him out with a drone strike, although they could have by this rationale.