Joanna
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
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