Miranda Rights For Christmas Day Bomber – Why? And Who Authorized It?

2010 February 1

by John L. Work

Any cop, prosecutor, or defense lawyer will tell you that the quickest way to get a suspect to stop talking to you is to read him his Miranda Rights and get him a lawyer. The Obama Department of Justice, under Attorney General Eric Holder, has now begun dancing, two-stepping, ducking and dodging about, in earnest, as to who actually made the Christmas Day decision to Mirandize Muslim Underwear Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – and why. It was a terrible mistake, whether he was to be sent to a Civilian Court or handed over for a Military Tribunal. I tell you that from twenty years of experience in law enforcement.

The Los Angeles Times has the latest chapter in this ever-morphing story:

“The decision to advise the accused Christmas Day attacker of his right to remain silent was made after teleconferences involving at least four government agencies — and only after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had stopped talking to authorities, according to knowledgeable law enforcement officials.

Among those involved in the hastily called teleconferences were representatives from the Justice Department and the FBI, along with officials from the State Department and the CIA.

“It was a [law enforcement] community-wide conference, and they discussed a number of things,” one source said on condition of anonymity. “That’s when decisions were made on which course was going to proceed, to Mirandize him or otherwise.”…

…The source said that Abdulmutallab was not read his rights until he made it clear that he was not going to say anything else… It still remains unclear who gave the go-ahead to read him the Miranda warning…”

Swell. So what if he didn’t want to talk any more at that moment? We didn’t need a confession. We needed more information. The interrogation should have resumed after the medical treatment and a nice hot meal. With all of the eye-witnesses to what happened aboard Northwest Flight 253 a confession would not be necessary for conviction in either a civilian or military trial. More information from Abdulmutallab about what he knows of pending attacks would have been most helpful.

Is this attempted bombing an act of war or just a plain old vanilla criminal conspiracy?

Either way, why would the Obama Administration want to assist a criminal conspirator or a Soldier of Allah (take your pick) who just got caught with his flaming pants down in the act of trying to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of Americans by not holding him for further life-saving intelligence-gathering – without benefit of counsel? It was not about a confession at that point. It was about stopping the next attack. American lives were, and are, at stake. Mirandizing Abdulmutallab was not only foolish, it raises the question as to how serious Obama and his administration really are about protecting The United States of America – and winning the War.