Terrorists’ Right to Remain Silent or Holder’s Kangaroo Court?
By Bronwyn's Harbor on November 19, 2009 at 7:15 PM in Current Affairs
It’s evident, as this satire reflects:
I’m sure we all agree that Miranda warnings for U.S. citizens are a precious right. (See the original Supreme Court decision and its history: Miranda v. Arizona.) Most everyone, thanks to countless TV shows, is aware of that right. And, also thanks to TV dramas, we’ve all seen instances in which an innocent person accused of a crime inadvertently said something to the police that came back to haunt him/her. Had this person taken advantage of having an attorney present, s/he would have advised the accused to remain silent.
The image shows a cropped portion of Justice William E. Brennan, Jr.’s letter to Chief Justice Earl Warren. (At that same site — “American Treasures of the Library of Congress” — you can view Justice Warren’s handwritten notes on Miranda.)
But should this right be extended to alien terrorists, even on foreign soil? Should Osama bin Laden be Mirandazed?
And who could not shudder when the inept Attorney General Eric Holder fumbled around on that question posed by Senator Lindsey Graham (who is also Col. Lindsey Graham, an Air Force Reservist)?
Or his legally insane assurance that there’s no way KSM can not be convicted??? Uh, then… uh…what is the point of a U.S. trial with all of its precious built-in safeguards for the accused? Every attorney, judge and law professor in the country must have fallen over Wednesday when they heard that unethical — yes, unethical, as well as wholly legally unsound — ass-urance. And it makes a mockery of our heralded system of justice, turning this upcoming trial into a de facto “kangaroo court.” We should all feel aghast that our chief law enforcement officer would advocate such a sham trial.
Not for nothing, but the US has spent a whole ton of our money building “state-of-the-art” courtrooms in Guantanamo. As one might guess, they were built just for the purpose of trying these enemy combatants.
The NPR blog describes the astounding interaction in the following video:
[...] In one of the highlights of Wednesday’s Justice Department oversight hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, attempted to put Holder on the spot with the question: would U.S. officials need to Mirandize Osama bin Ladin if it captured him, including telling the al Qaeda leader that he had the right to remain silent?
Holder essentially said no, not necessarily. It would depend on the tack the U.S. government decided to take after capturing the terrorist leader. Graham clearly wasn’t persuaded by Holder’s answer.
The exchange started with Graham stumping Holder with a question one would have thought the attorney general would have been prepared for: … (transcript follows)
This man is our chief law enforcement officer? This man is also in charge of numerous law enforcement divisions like the FBI? Lord god almighty.
What it this? Hell’s bells. The Hapless Hopeless Holder has a terminal case of liberal lunacy.
And here’s an interesting finding from the blog at The Weekly Standard, “Schumer in 2001: “Ludicrous” to Try 9/11 Plotters in Civilian Courts“:
… the Washington Times unearths a quote from New York Senator Chuck Schumer in which, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Schumer mocks the idea that anyone would give the 9/11 plotters the same rights afforded to American citizens charged with pick-pocketing.
There are also those prisoners of war who we have captured and will capture in Afghanistan and other countries who will receive a trial of some sort. It is clear we need to try those suspects in a forum that achieves two primary goals—two goals, I might add, that may not conflict. First, the Government must have the power to use even the most sensitive classified evidence against these suspects without compromising national security in any way, shape, or form. In addition, those who commit acts of war against the United States, particularly those who have no color of citizenship, don’t deserve the same panoply of due process rights that American citizens receive. Should Osama bin Laden be captured alive—and I imagine most Americans hope he won’t be captured alive. But if he is, it is ludicrous to suggest he should be tried in a Federal court on Center Street in Lower Manhattan.
Yesterday, when Holder was asked whether bin Laden would be read Miranda rights if he were captured by U.S. forces, his answer: “that all depends…” Ed Morrissey asks, “What has changed in eight years to transform KSM and his cohorts into people who do ‘deserve the same panoply of due process rights that American citizens receive’?” On that, the Washington Times was unable to get a straight answer from Schumer.
Yeah. Right. It does all depend. On who’s in charge, and who has the C.S. — that plain ol’ C.S. (aka Common Sense) — to make sound judgments.
Larry Johnson has it right in his post, “Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Will Destroy Obama .” But not before making a laughing stock of our country for giving this platform to KSM, or before saddling New York City with costs it can ill afford (and no, the city and state do not get fully reimbursed for their costs). Never mind how sensitive information will be handled. It really makes you wonder just what the Obama Administration hopes to gain from this politically? Make no mistake, this is all about politics. If it was about the law, Attorney General Holder would have known the answer to Senator Graham’s questions…
Bronwyn’s Note: Thank you to Reverend Amy and Larry Johnson for their remarkably astute ideas and edits that made this post better. You’re both great editors, and we all benefit from such fine editing.
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