[lbo-talk] No rights for Tsarnaev?

[Bill Bartlett]

At 10:54 PM -0700 21/4/13, Chuck Grimes wrote:
>I couldn't find an explicit story, but I assume this:
>
>http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/04/21/178254784/miranda-rights-and-tsarnaev-ashcroft-says-u-s-move-is-the-right-one
>
>No Miranda. Hmm. This may turn out to be a big mistake, or a big 
>victory for the Reich. If they can use this case as a precedent, 
>they can pretty much annul most civil rights for anybody charged 
>under terrorism as a special universe where there are no laws.
>
>There is probably zero to massively negative popular feeling toward 
>anybody with a name like Tsarnaev. OTOH, maybe some body like Mike 
>Tigar can pull off a miracle. Doubtful. Just imagine the evil mind 
>that set up the civil rights lefties to a must win case or else.
>
>Where is the public safety exception for a guy with near critical 
>injuries in a hospital who can't speak (intubated?), chained to his 
>bed, and is no doubt under 24/7 armed guards? His mere existance is 
>an existential threat to greatest military power on the planet. I am 
>sure...

The "right to remain silent" seems to be a right observed more in the 
breach than the observance.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-confessions/

That was a documentary screened on SBS here last night. There seem to 
be an endless parade of these kind of cases of innocent people 
getting convicted. There was another documentary screened here last 
week about an innocent man who was hanged in Texas, despite there 
being overwhelming evidence he was innocent. (in fact the weight of 
evidence left no doubt there was not even a crime, he was executed 
over an accidental fire which killed his children.) The common thread 
that runs through these cases seems to be that public opinion 
over-rides actual evidence. People are convicted, or otherwise, for 
political reasons, not on the basis of evidence. If the public 
doesn't like you, if they want you punished or even killed, that is 
likely to happen regardless of the evidence.

That being the case, this Tsarnaev fellow is dead meat.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas