MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said Saturday that both the Underwear Bomber or Times Square Bomber "kept singing" after they were read their Miranda rights.
MADDOW: It is interesting. You look at the way that civilian terrorism prosecutions have gone down in this country, and you look at the Underwear Bomber, you look at the Times Square bomber, and there may have been controversy over when they were administered their Miranda rights and conservatives not wanting them to have been administered their Miranda rights. But there's never been any indication whatsoever that either of them shut up because they were read their Miranda rights. They both kept singing long after that Law and Order script was read to them. It should also be noted that the military tribunals have a much worse prosecution and sentencing record, or at least a much looser sentencing and prosecution record, than civilian trials do for terrorism suspects overall.
Maddow is totally wrong. U.S. officials say Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian national who attempted to blow up Northwest Flight 253 to Detroit, Michigan, on Christmas Day 2009, was told of Miranda rights only after he ceased cooperating with law enforcement. He did not "keep singing" after he was informed of a right to remain silent, unless Maddow refers to his shouting "Allahu Akbar" five times in a federal courthouse when he was sentenced to life in prison in February 2012.
That may be one reason federal authorities have invoked the "public safety exception" that allows them to delay informing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old ethnic Chechen who recently became a U.S. citizen, of his Miranda rights until more details of the Boston Marathon bombing plot can be learned.