Boston Marathon bomb suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
With the successful capture of the second Boston Marathon bombing suspect, Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the focus turns to the postmortem of the capture, the why and how of the attacks, and, of course, the exploitation of the attack by Republicans who want to reignite the Bush/Cheney war on terror and war on civil liberties.
The Boston Globe has a detailed profile of the brothers Tsarnaev, suggesting as many reports have that the younger brother was heavily influenced by a strong-willed and increasingly extremist brother.
For the details of the capture, this detailed timeline from the Washington Post fits the bill. One jarring note, particularly after the failure of new gun safety measures in the Senate this week:
Finally discovered, the Tsarnaevs led police on a chase through residential streets, hurling grenades and makeshift bombs as they drove. When cornered, they battled police with guns and more homemade explosives, wounding a transit officer and trading more than 200 rounds until the officers ran out of ammunition.
The two had apparently amassed more firepower than the police had at hand. But instead of talking about gun regulations now, some Republicans (Chuck Grassley is
taking the lead) want to use this to derail immigration reform. Others, led by the usual suspects Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain, of course want to strip Tsarnaev of his civil liberties and try him as a military detainee and
sent to Guantanamo. Because you certainly don't want to wait until an investigation reveals the motives of the suspect, and whether or not he had any ties to any actual terrorist organization. Here are
four good reasons not to: 1) he might not be an enemy combatant, just a killer with a bomb; 2) he is a naturalized U.S. citizen; 3) he was captured in the U.S., which poses as many legal challenges as trying a citizen as an enemy combatant; and 4) there's no reason to believe a military detention would gain any prosecutorial advantage.
The administration has invoked a public-safety exemption to delay reading Tsarnaev his Miranda rights. The public-safety exemption is intended to give law enforcement the opportunity to determine if there are any imminent threats still posed: unexploded IEDs that might be planted around the city, co-conspirators still at large, etc. What the exemption means for Tsarnaev is that anything he says to investigators during this exemption period will could nonetheless be admissible in court. Which is why the public-safety exemption should be, as the ACLU's Anthony Romero told the New York Times' Charlie Savage, "a narrow and limited one, and it would be wholly inappropriate and unconstitutional to use it to create the case against the suspect."
A primary concern with any statements he might make in the next days is what kind of medical condition he is in, whether statements might be made while he's under the influence of sedation and/or painkillers, and if those statements end up being used in his prosecution. Marcy Wheeler explores those issues, as well as the question of whether the administration will follow the intent of the limited public-safety exemption, or extend for weeks the period in which Tsarnaev is denied counsel.
11:43 AM PT: And, of course, there's this from a New York state senator. Yes, he's a Republican.