Feds Used "Public Safety Exception" To Question Tsarnaev Without Mirandizing Him--Can They Question Him Until He Dies Of Old Age?

by Monica Davis

Now that the feds have jumped off the reservation and have used the “publlic safety” rule to throw the Fifth Amendment out of the window, who’s next? 

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, captured last Friday evening, was not informed of his right to remain silent and his right to a lawyer until Monday morning, nearly three days after his arrest. The FBI said the delay was justified under the “public safety” exception to Miranda v. Arizona, the 1966 ruling in which the Supreme Court said the now-familiar warnings are required to enforce the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against compelled self-incrimination. But Senior Editor Jacob Sullum argues that the public-safety exception itself is not justified, which he says becomes clear when you consider the 1984 decision that announced it. View this article.

Who will determine when and where the Constitution applies? Will it be the beat cop down the street, the federal investigator across the border, or the state cop itching for a promotion?

Now that authorities have captured Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old believed to be the second suspect in the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday, federal law enforcement officials are invoking the public safety exception regarding his Miranda rights, a senior Justice Department official told ABC News.

The exception, according to the FBI‘s website, “permits law enforcement to engage in a limited and focused unwarned interrogation and allows the government to introduce the statement as direct evidence.” MOREHERE

Who created the “public safety” rule? What is it?  

Basically, the “Public Safety Rule” is an exclusion to the Miranda warnings: 

There is only one exception to the Miranda warnings rule: If police officers are dealing with a situation that creates a danger to themselves or the public, they may ask a suspect limited questions in order to neutralize the threat without first providing a warning of rights, according to the FBI’s definition of the “public safety” exception.

The exception was created in New York v. Quarles, in which the Supreme Court ruled that when police were confronted with a previously armed rape suspect wearing an empty holster, they were allowed to ask him where the gun was without first reading to him his Miranda rights, explains criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor David Yannetti of Boston.

The so-called “public safety” exception only allows police to question an “un-Mirandized” suspect if there is an “immediate threat” to the safety of those around him. “Once the immediacy of the threat ends, so the exception ends as well,” says Yannetti, “and Miranda comes back into play.”

Now, re-read that last sentence: “Once the immediacy of the threat ends, so the exception ends as well.” Well, who can now determine if the “immediate threat” has ended? Are there more bombs, more bombers? What is the extent of the Tsarnaev brothers’ plot?

Can the feds question Tsaernaev until he dies of old age?