Free Republic

On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Vega V Tekoh, a case involving the administration of Miranda rights, with the court ruling that a suspect’s words or statements can be used in court regardless of their Miranda rights. For background, these are the facts of the case in question: Terence Tekoh worked as a patient transporter in a hospital in Los Angeles. After a patient accused him of sexual assault, hospital staff reported the allegation to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Deputy Carlos Vega went to the hospital to ask Tekoh questions and take Tekoh’s statement. Although the...

When several men in green military fatigues and generic "police" patches sprang out of an unmarked gray minivan in front of Mark Pettibone in the early hours of Wednesday morning, his first instinct was to run.

Should the U.S. Supreme Court reconsider the famous 'Miranda' rights? One law professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, Paul Cassell, made a case for remaking what we know today as the 'Miranda' rights at a Heritage Foundation debate. Cassell noted, "Whenever we talk about the Warren Court decisions, the sense is often the world didn't exist until the Warren Court came along." For the audience, he reminded them that before the court case and decision, confessions given to law enforcement were admissible in court. He gave background information on the Miranda v. Arizona case, where...

This image from the FBI website shows Anas al-Libi. Gunmen in a three-car convoy seizedNazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaeda leader connected to the1998 embassy bombings in eastern Africa and wanted by the U.S. for more than a decade outside hishouse Saturday in the Libyan capital, his relatives said. (AP Photo/FBI) In a time when the current administration appears to favor kills over capture as well as "catch and release", last Saturday Abu Anas al-Libi (Zawahiri's man in Libya) survived President Obama's kill list to be captured instead of droned upon: Since President Obama stepped...

Suddenly, every cable news anchor, every pundit, every Sunday show guest, and every waiter in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia has become an expert on whether or not Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be informed of his Miranda rights. Let's assume, for the moment, that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has never watched a single episode of "Law & Order" in any of its manifestations and, thus, does not know he can ask for a lawyer - or refuse to answer any questions with a lawyer or without. Just so I can catch up (I know you already know this), the whole Miranda thing stems...

In congressional testimony on January 20, the nation’s top intelligence official, Dennis Blair, acknowledged that the U.S. government mishandled the interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian terrorist who tried to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day. Specifically, Blair was not happy that Abdulmutallab was charged as a common criminal and read his rights, rather than being questioned by the elite interrogation unit announced by President Obama as a replacement for the CIA teams used by the Bush administration. “I’d been a part of the deliberations which established this high-value interrogation unit [HIG],” Blair explained at a...

In the wake of the Times Square bombing plot, the Obama administration said on Sunday it wants to work with Congress on possible limitations of the constitutional rights afforded terrorism suspects — even for American citizens. Attorney General Eric Holder said changes may be needed to allow law enforcement more time to question suspected terrorists before they are told about their Miranda rights to a lawyer and to remain silent under interrogation. As the nation debates how to proceed against terrorist attacks, particularly as they have become the work of individuals who are difficult to detect in advance, the administration...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wants to allow the government to interrogate U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism without warning them of their right to remain silent—a proposal that would dramatically rewrite the rules regarding suspects captured inside the United States. “Miranda warnings are counterproductive in my view,” Graham said at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday. “The homeland is part of the battlefield. So this idea that you get to America, the rules dramatically change, to the benefit of the suspect – the terrorist – makes no sense,” he said. Graham told POLITICO he is working on...

Pres. Obama believes in Miranda rights and civilian trials for terrorists who have killed or seek to kill Americans. But when it comes to companies that have supplied untold quantitites of energy resources to the American economy and paid out billions in wages and supply purchases to American workers and firms, well, punitive ex post facto laws are PBO's order of the day. Under the law of the land, the Oil Pollution Act limits BP's liability for spill-related to damages to $75 million. But Pres. Obama "strongly supports" the adoption of an ex post facto law that would retroactively expand...

Suppose the U.S. Senate passed a law which gives the Federal Government the power to do the following to American citizens who are suspected of a crime: 1.Forbid interrogators from telling the person of their right to remain silent. 2.Forbid interrogators from telling the person of their right to legal counsel. 3.Deny the person habeas corpus protection (the government cannot keep a person in custody without charge). 4.Do all the above not only to a person suspected of a crime, but also to a person who may know about a possible future crime.

Joe Lieberman is once again endorsing John McCain over Barack Obama – this time on a critical national security issue. Lieberman and McCain have introduced a bill that would deny Miranda rights to terrorist suspects and block them from the U.S. civil court system. The bill could interfere with the Obama administration’s efforts to cut a deal with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to develop a comprehensive system to deal with detainees—an effort that would include some role for federal courts. Graham, a military lawyer and currently serves a colonel in the U.S. Air Force reserves, has been negotiating with White...

The United States and Pakistani intelligence forces captured the Taliban's top military commander in a secret joint operation in Karachi, Pakistan, the online edition of The New York Times said. Billed as the most significant Taliban figure since the start of the US-led war in Afghanistan eight years ago and second only to Taliban founder Mohammad Omar, Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was captured several days ago and is currently in Pakistani custody with US officials taking part in his interrogation. Baradar, an Afghani, was a close associate of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before the September 11, 2001...

Like it or not, one of the advantages that al Qaeda does have is an ability to change strategy without their leaders mulling it over for four months, the way President Obama did when he was trying to figure out Afghanistan. The Washington Times is reporting that during the underwear bombers second wave of talking he admitted meeting some other English Speakers at terrorism school in Yemen. Thank goodness his parents talking him into speaking, because this was all well after he shut up upon being read his Miranda rights.

On February 2nd, NBC correspondent Pete Williams announced Breaking News during the 5 PM ET edition of Hardball: the Christmas Day Bomber, Umar Abdul Mutallab, was giving fresh, actionable information to the FBI which the United States is in turn "aggressively chasing down." Less than an hour later, this NewsBuster [AKA FReeper governsleast] blogged on the matter, wondering whether by leaking the news, "the Obama administration compromised national security," in an attempt to deflect the criticism it had been receiving for mirandizing Mutallab rather than treating him like the enemy combatant he is. On today's Fox News Watch, panelist Jim...

One of the most oft-asked questions since the "underwear bomber" was arrested on Christmas day is why was he treated as a domestic criminal instead of being turned over to to our intelligence agencies to be interrogated. As Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab the Underwear Bomber, was fresh from the terrorist operations in Yemen, we could have gotten valuable information regarding al Qaeda's new set-up in Yemen. The word leaked out is immediately after his arrest Abdulmutallab sang like a canary, then he was read his Miranda rights,so he "lawyered-up" and stopped talking. If he had been turned over to the special...

It speaks eloquently to the Obama administration’s priorities that it took the White House four days to acknowledge the “catastrophic breach of security” that led to the failed bombing of a US-bound jet on Christmas Day — but a scant four hours to accuse Dick Cheney of coddling terrorists. The former vice president Wednesday harshly criticized the administration’s efforts — or non-efforts — against terrorism. Whereupon, Team Obama went ballistic. But Cheney’s take was spot-on: “We are at war” against terrorism, but President Obama “pretends we aren’t.” This, warned Cheney, “makes us less safe.” Precisely. Obama, he said, “seems to...

Obama Administration Is Right To Prosecute Alleged Detroit Bomber in U.S. Court Thursday, December 31, 2009 FORMER VICE president Richard B. Cheney on Wednesday joined a Republican chorus criticizing the Obama administration's decision to charge alleged bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in federal court. Mr. Cheney and others argue that Mr. Abdulmutallab, who is accused of trying to down Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas, should have been held as an enemy combatant and pumped for information, rather than read his Miranda rights and provided a lawyer. They further argue that the decision to shuttle him to federal court shows...

Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to give a federal court trial instead of a military commission hearing to five Guantanamo detainees the government has linked to the 9/11 attacks has led to criticism that the Obama Administration is transforming the war on terror from a military to law-enforcement affair. This has led some critics to wonder if captured terrorist suspects would have to be read their Miranda rights on being captured by U.S. military or law enforcement representatives. In one of the highlights of Wednesday's Justice Department oversight hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina...

Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, skewers Attorney General Eric Holder's .... Must see video

Well, now we know why Obama doesn't use the term "war on terror" anymore - he doesn't consider terrorism an act of war. Instead, he has taken us back to the days of Bill Clinton, when terrorist acts were treated like a "crime." In a story reported in The Weekly Standard , Representative Mike Rogers (R-Mich) is accusing the Obama administration of ordering the F.B.I. to read Miranda rights to detainees being held at U.S. military facilities in Afghanistan. This is creating a great deal of damage on the battlefield, not to mention how it is affecting the security of...