ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero pushed for a rapid Mirandizing of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Monday on "The Daily Rundown," saying press reports and law enforcement indicate "threats have been lifted" and using the public safety exception would "rightly" give federal prosecutors trouble in court.
Romero appeared to be getting ahead of events in pursuit of his ideological agenda. What does he know that the rest of us do not? While Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis has said he does not believe there is an imminent threat to the metro public, many questions remain in the case of the Boston attack.
Tsarnaev remains in serious condition with gunshot wounds to his neck and leg and has been unable to speak with investigators, only communicating through writing. Substantive questioning does not appear to have begun.
As host Chuck Todd point out, it is not known whether Tsarnaev has answered questions about his older brother's activities in Russia. Nor is it clear what other plans the brothers had in mind and whether others abroad or in the United States were involved in their terrorist plot that killed three including an eight-year-old boy and wounded, in many cases severely, 170. The brothers subsequently murdered an MIT security officer and critically wounded a Boston transit officer.
Romero said no, emphasizing any delay in reading a suspect Miranda rights should only be about "imminent threats" and claiming such a circumstance did not apply in this case.
"Once they can satisfy the fact that we're not at harm, we're not at risk anymore as a public, they need to read him his Miranda rights and treat him like a criminal defendant," Romero said.
He did not provide evidence for his assertion that "we're not at risk anymore as a public."
Romero also implied that knowledge obtained during interrogation prior to the reading of Miranda rights may jeopardize a conviction in court.
However, supporters of treating Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant for the purposes of interrogation say that that objection is irrelevant because copious amounts of video and forensic evidence, as well as eyewitness testimony, exist to prosecute the 19-year-old bomber.
The main reason to delay providing Tsarnaev legal counsel, they say, is to learn as much as possible about the terror plot that shut down a major American city last week, and to determine the geographical and social dimensions of the first successful terror attack on American soil since September 11, 2001.