The legal and media spectacle that followed the senseless terrorist bombing at the Boston marathon has me worried for the future. Not because of the the terrorists themselves, but because of the reaction of the American media and the American leadership to the terrorist acts against our society. A great article worth a quick read:
http://www.jpost.com/Features/Front-Lines/What-message-is-US-sending-with-a-Boston-lockdown-310424
Now that a suspect has been caught, the mob mentality is taking over our justice system. First off, the suspect is denied his Miranda rights. A great point made by this author as to why we should care about this.
The next thing to watch will be to see if the suspect is denied habeas corpus and detained indefinitely. Apparently, according to this article, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013, there is a provision that claims to ensure that “any person inside the United States” is allowed their constitutional rights, including habeas corpus. Thus it seems if they continue to treat this suspect outside of the normal rule of law, they would need to send him offshore to Guantanamo Bay. Senator Lindsey Graham has already stated a desire to treat the suspect as an enemy combatant for intelligence gathering purposes, though the Obama administration has said that is unlikely. Should this suspect be sent to Guantanamo Bay to be questioned, that would set a strong and disturbing precedent for the treatment of any american citizen accused of a crime.
I don’t want the lingering result of this terrorist act to be the canonization of lynch law. If we don’t provide the suspect his civil rights, the terrorists will have won the battle.