Shortly after this story developed I heard conservative talk radio host Sean Hannity speaking about the treatment of Mr. Shahzad after he was arrested. It didn’t take long for my brain to attempt to vacate my skull via my ears. The gist of his argument was this: This man should not have been read his Miranda rights because they could have gotten in the way of interrogation efforts.
Sean is not alone. Republican after Republican has gone on the record saying that Faisel should not have been “Mirandized”. John McCain was awoken out of his cryogenic sleep to say “Don’t give this guy his Miranda rights until we find out what it’s all about”.
I was dumbfounded. I was speechless. Then I was furious. Why am I outraged? To answer that we must first forget Faisel Shahzad for a moment. Instead, let’s focus on what the rights these illustrious thinkers are so up in arms about.
Miranda rights ought to be familiar to anyone who has even watched a cop on TV arrest the bad guy. It goes something like this:
”You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.”What you may not have realized at the time is that these are not called “rights” for nothing. The police legal department did not simply make them up. They draw their roots from the founding papers of our nation.
Let’s start at the top. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution reads:
“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” (emphasis mine)The italicized portion of this amendment, the fact that an American citizen cannot be compelled to witness against himself, is where we derive the right to silence. By extension, if you choose not to exercise that right you are told the consequences of that action.
The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution states:
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”(emphasis mine)Pretty much broken down to crayons. You have the right to a lawyer. Period.
That a man is presumed to be innocent until proven otherwise is a widely acknowledged legal principle of every civilized nation, particularly in the Western world. It is never explicitly stated, but is heavily implied, through the 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments, and you would be hard pressed to find a soul who would dispute it.
Finally, the aforementioned 14th Amendment, Section 1, states:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”(emphasis mine)
Our Founders understood the propensity of government to restrict the rights and freedoms of its citizens out of expedience. Those who followed in their footsteps wanted to make certain that there could be no doubt whatsoever that a government cannot arbitrarily choose which rights a citizen ought to be allowed when.
Faisel Shahzad is many things. A Pakistani, a Muslim, a father, a husband, an alleged terrorist, an alleged traitor. He is also one more thing that is far more important in this case than any other: He is a naturalized American citizen.
As a citizen he has rights. Among those rights are those detailed in the Miranda list. Note I do not say, nor does the Constitution imply, he has those rights when it is convenient for us. Note that I do not say, nor does the Constitution imply, that he ought to have those rights up until they get in our way.
If Faisel were not a citizen he would not have any protection under the Constitution. If Faisel had been captured on a foreign battlefield by our soldiers he would be rightly classified as a Prisoner of War. The fact is, however, that Faisel is an American, he was arrested by American civil authorities, and like it or not, he deserves equal protection as guaranteed to him by the Constitution of the United States!
To those who would lay claim to the title Conservative and yet pretend that they can throw out this, our most precious document and guardian of our freedoms, simply because it suits the needs of the moment, I would say you ought to be ashamed. You, sirs, are in this moment more despicable by far than Faisel himself. For, while this alleged traitor sought only to deprive those around him life, you would seek to grant the government the right to deprive its citizens of liberty.
4 comments:
The existence of Miranda rights is clear from the Constitution. The idea that he needs to be read them is a purely judicial creation (that's why they're called Miranda Warnings and not Constitutional Warnings). A general rule holds that ignorance of the law is no defense. For a century and a half the corollary of that held that ignorance of your rights under the law was your own fault. By reading someone his Miranda rights you gain the ability to use what he says to you in a court of law. By failing to do so you have not violated his rights. By waterboarding him, by holding him without charges (habeas), by denying him counsel where he requests it, you can be said to have violated his rights. By introducing testimony he gave prior to a Miranda warning you may be said to have violated his rights (thus it would be inadmissible). But this was not about building a legal case about him, this was about getting more information to prevent future attacks. We're confounding his rights with the Supreme Court's awkward construing of them, and even under the Miranda court's strained interpretation what Hannity and McCain said is not violative.
Agreed, building a case against the man is less important than finding out information. Also agreed is that ignorance is not a defense.
However, what Hannity said during his radio show was that allowing him the right to remain silent, and allowing him to seek counsel were the problems. He was saying that after he got a lawyer he may have well shut up and then there would have been no way to find out what we needed to know. In other words it was the rights themselves, not merely the informing of those rights, that he had issue with, because the man in question was a terrorist. The quotes I've found from McCain sound similar (The qutoe is "allowing him his Miranda rights", not "informing him of his Miranda rights", though I must admit I did not hear the interview they come from personally.
The law enforcement officials did right in beginning interrogations under the public safety clause that is included in the Constitution. Once they determined there was no immediate threat, they did right in granting him his rights.
If that's what they said I agree with you. If it's a guy toting around a suitcase nuke we can revisit the balance between civil liberties and security, but even if this guy was successful it was still an attack on a moderate scale and as an American citizen in America he's entitled to the same protections as any other American criminal. I just remember reading half a dozen hyperbolic rants from mainstream journalists supposing that the Miranda Warnings were mandated by the Constitution; as far as I'm concerned the failure of a citizen to understand his basic rights as an American citizen is his own damned fault and it should be held against him. As I understand it we're the only country that maintains an exclusionary rule too.
I definitely agree with you. Being informed and knowing your basic rights are the responsibility of a citizen...Perhaps if they were esoteric rights granted by some dusty clause hidden in a thousand page bill there could be an argument...but this is the Constitution and Bill of Rights we're talking about. The fact that the Miranda warnings are being considered interchangable with the Miranda rights (the latter being simply another name for those granted by the Constitution, the former just an explanation of them), particularly among those who are paid to know better, says a lot about the state of our country's citizens.
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