According to reporting on MSNBC, a government official has claimed that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was questioned in the hospital and said that he and his brother had no help from any overseas organizations, that they conceived the attack on their own, that they were motivated by religious fervor, and that they learned how to make the bombs by doing research on the internet. Anyone who suggested that we weren’t being shown footage of the actual placement of the backpack at the site of the explosion because it would prejudice the jury pool should consider the effect of questioning this man without reading him his rights and then leaking his confession to the world. How does leaking his confession impact the potential jury pool?
When he was read his rights, it was by an actual federal judge in a makeshift courtroom set up in the hospital. When asked if he had any money for counsel, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said, “no.”
So, he has money for college and money for a car and money for an apartment and money for guns and money for ammunition and money for bomb components, but he doesn’t have any money for a lawyer so the taxpayers have to pick that up for him. That’s very nice.
I am already disgusted by this story. Obviously, I am extremely pissed off that the attack took place in the first place. I’m angry with elements of the media for screwing up repeatedly in their reporting. Wrongly announcing an arrest. Publishing the names and pictures of the wrong suspects on the front-page. Not asking obvious questions of the government. It’s been a disgrace. I’m pissed at the right-wing reaction and their willingness to politicize literally everything. And I am pissed at the administration for allowing doubts to arise because they didn’t give us the evidence of guilt that they had, because the complaint against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev didn’t have a single mention of the murder of the MIT police officer, and we haven’t been told why the Tsarnaev brothers were falsely accused of an armed robbery at a gas station. And now they have gone and actually prejudiced the jury pool by leaking a confession that won’t be admissible in court.
At least the FBI did a good job of figuring out who they were and the police did a good job of tracking them down. And at least we didn’t torture anyone. At least we are treating the suspect as a U.S. citizen. But I’m still annoyed.
I don’t see why you think there is video of the suspect literally putting down the backpack. To me it looks like a game of telephone where ‘video that shows he brought a bag and left without it’ gets turned into ‘video shows he left the bag’ into ‘video shows him placing the bag.’ In particular, the governor’s statement is vague and second-hand.
Because that’s the story that has been told repeatedly. I didn’t make it up. It’s even in the criminal complaint.
The total cost of all those things you say he can buy with his money would not retain a lawyer for one day, certainly not one who would take his case.
What college did you go to?
Want to start some conspiracies. Either that or you are so wary of the conspiracies some nutcase might start you are jumping on any little discrepancy
For example the suspect’s defense would cost well into the 6 figure range. A 19 year old who is going to school, most likely on loans, simply could not afford that.
They can amend the criminal complaint at any time to add the MIT officer.
As for the video of the suspect laying the backpack down I don’t know why you keeping on harping on it. The video clips they showed were put out there to give the public pictures of the suspects faces so as to get information from the public. If them actually laying the backpacks down weren’t facial shots there was no reason to show them.
Honestly the only person I have seen raise doubts because we didn’t get the supposed holy grail of video clips, them laying the backpacks down, is you.
I suspect the MIT murder would be a separate state trial.
it. The killing of the MIT cop would be a state crime not a federal crime and therefore wouldn’t be included in this indictment,
I admit I was slow off the mark with this. You’re right Booman, it’s a very good question. All the photo information we did get in such abundance could have been of the “look over here, not over there” type. And of course it was very widely publicized.
We don’t even know exactly when those photos were taken, do we?
Also, about Dzhokhar’s “confession”. What I’ve been seeing is that he said repeatedly they acted alone, not connected to any group.
Acted alone in what, exsctly?
The gun battles. any witnesses?
MIT shooting, even the press calls that one “alleged”. No info.
The carjacking. Who was that guy “who asked that his identity not be revealed”? A lot of what we “know” comes from what he said they told him.
The “confession”. We don’t know anything but what they tell us.
Uncle Ruslan. A man with a lot of interesting connections.
Who was the Armenian Muslim convert “Misha”? According to Uncle Ruslan, he was the man who, over a considerable period of time. radicalized Tamerlan. Interesting that the uncle, with all his supposed concerns, given his education and resources, had never found out who that guy was. So far nobody else does either.
The controlled bomb test on the 600 block of Boylston street, announced by “law enforcement” at 12:53. What the hell was that about? The first of the deadly explosions occurred on the 600 block of Boylston at 2:49, the second in front of 755 Boylston 13 seconds later.
The actual controlled explosion actually was conducted at 3:54.
If we had video of him walking in with the bag, and out without it, why wouldn’t we have video of the moment in-between when he sat it down?
We do have video of that. They just decided not to show it to us.
I don’t know Booman, sounds like poutrage to me. The government is not obligated to air all the evidence you want in the manner you see fit. They’re obliged to make a case in court. Nor are they obligated to give you a blow by blow of every how they came to possess every bit of information or misinformation they have. It’s also not clear to me why it would be necessary to produce a complaint with every possible charge. I’m not a lawyer but I’m pretty sure they can and will make additional charges whenever they want to.
I am not arguing that they are obligated to tell me everything.
I am saying that they have made decisions to withhold evidence and to not explain or clear up misconceptions which, in their totality, are spawning widespread doubt about the accuracy of their story. And they also used their public safety window to elicit a confession and then told everyone about it so that only people living in the woods without batteries or electricity will be able to serve an impartial jurors.
You are correct that they are under no obligation to mention the murder of a police officer in their criminal complaint, but they could maybe realize that that decision should be carefully explained to the public.
It’s just a fact of life that people have learned not to trust the government, and a government that wants to be respected and trusted should not invite or even encourage skepticism for no good reason.
Anytime they assume that their ‘word’ will be trusted, they’re making a mistake.
Now they are all rushing to reassure us that their was no broader conspiracy. The mayor of Boston said that today. The leak of the confession also leaked the bomber’s assertion that they acted alone with no help. This, too, will not be believed. It’s too early to make such assurances, and certainly not on the basis of the criminal’s denials.
Whenever possible, they should show us rather than tell us. And they should correct and explain errors quickly rather than letting them fester.
Today we are told simultaneously that the bombers have no money and that they received no help. Okay, but don’t let that sit there causing cognitive dissonance.
Put it this way. They should not rely on the fact that this kid quite obviously got into a gunfight with the cops to satisfy everyone that he he did everything else he’s been accused of without any help from anyone other than his brother. They need to be more aggressive in shutting down the doubters by understanding how the narrative they’re telling has certain weaknesses.
And their leak tonight doesn’t help. Yesterday, people were trying to justify not showing the smoking gun footage because it would prejudice the jury, and then today they actually give the entire nation inadmissible evidence of a confession? How about we switch that around? Instead of telling us that he confessed, how about just showing the video of him placing the bomb and merely telling us that he denied being part of any international conspiracy?
I’m a lawyer and it makes sense to me. The government doesn’t need the confession to convict the kid. They’ve got the video, which is an actual smoking gun. So they use the confession for political damage control — whatever. As far as people not trusting the government, the vast majority of folks are not paying attention. Among those that are, those who distrust the government will find evidence to justify their preconceptions.
It’s important to get it out there quickly that this was not the tip of an international terrorism spear. It was two stupid young men with idiotic ideas in their heads and way too much access to dangerous toys. That’s the narrative that supports Obama’s agenda of gun control and immigration reform. Many Republicans want to create a narrative that upends both.
The public narrative is being formed right now. It’s very important not to lose time. The kid will be convicted later.
I’d like to see this principle applied to executive action on political issues. I’d like us to discuss what efforts Obama’s administration can make to elicit our respect and trust that he’s going to bat for us every day in the areas of defending Social Security and Medicare, upholding the Bill of Rights, and protecting the environment against corporate interests.
As for how our government is handling their case against the suspect, I don’t have an opinion about which I have neither expertise nor personal experience. Except I can imagine that everyone involved is exhausted.
Am waiting for the explanation of how Dzhokhar who had been bleeding for hours from a gunshot wound and was barely conscious could engage the police in a firefight. Wonder how many more shots he took from the BPD as they made every effort to take him alive.
All of these crazed mass killers are beginning to make the Unibomber look more rational.
Are you “annoyed” that we’re providing a lawyer for him? Why?
Who pays his tuition?
Who pays his rent?
Who pays for his brother to travel abroad?
Who pays for all these guns?
Yes, I am annoyed that this guy is supposedly too broke to pay for some cut-rate lawyer who wants his moment of fame.
And then I am told that we can all rest assured that there is nothing to worry about because everything indicates that they paid for all this stuff by themselves despite being unemployed.
If he’s broke, he’s broke. Let him have a lawyer. But I can’t be expected to believe that all these things are simultaneously true.
Very likely student loans are where his money has been coming from, he’s leveraged to his eyeballs, and the loans are about to dry up. It is quite possible to be well beyond broke and living adequately on credit as a student. Of course when you leave school for whatever reason, you are screwed, but that doesn’t prevent a lot of people from doing it.
That could very well be true. And we ought to be told that his finances will be carefully studied to determine how he was paying for his life and also to determine if he really needs a public attorney.
Even as a suspect in a high profile crime so no I don’t think the public at large is entitled to know details about his finances. Really very few people in this world could afford a defense like he one he will need and an even smaller percentage of college students could.
You seem to be saying the finances of this particular suspect should be scrutinized at a higher level than other federally charged suspects and I don’t get why.
By the way the charges filed today were federal not state so that probably answers your question about the MIT cop. That would be a state crime not a federal one.
Unless he’s got $50k or more to plunk down on a lawyer’s desk, he cannot afford to retain counsel. I don’t know how much his tuition is but it’s probably financed. Are there guaranteed loans for public defenders? If there were, once convicted they would never get paid back anyway. So what’s the difference?
Right after he was captured I heard they would assign him a public defender. Her name is Miriam Conrad.
http://news.yahoo.com/u-public-defender-boston-seeks-represent-bomb-suspect-182116594.html
I have had a tremendously difficult time finding the federal guidelines for establishing eligibility for public counsel. It seems to be at the discretion of the judge.
However, state guidelines are easily found and they tend to rely on:
Basically, you have to meet all three criteria. So, just owning a Mercedes could disqualify you. Having any kind of home equity could disqualify you. Having any kind of low-pay job that pays you above poverty levels could disqualify you. Having things of value to sell, like a coin collection, could disqualify you.
Whatever “adequate” representation means in a case like this, the public defenders get $178/hour for federal capital cases. That doesn’t mean you have to be unable to pay that amount to get a public defender. The bar is probably lower than that.
I’m with Charlie Pierce: “The complaint is barely unsealed, and already the commentary on this case has completely gone to the zoo.”
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/#ixzz2RFZ36ptM
Like the whole armed robbery deal–I’m pretty sure that came from the scanner chatter initially and maybe a conflation with them stealing money from the carjack victim (wasn’t it $800?). Is it really shocking that in the wake of a cop killing, carjacking, chase, and gunfight–all which unfolded in a relatively short amount of time–that there’s some reports that turned out not to be accurate? No. Not at all.
Exactly. The Boston news reported very quickly that the robbery was unrelated. But there is a lot of confusion in the media, and we just need to be patient and let the government figure out exactly what happened.
And here is what she said, as quoted in an interview that Oui directed us to:
because they initially denied that they interviewed Tamerlan. They only admitted it when his mother said they did in an interview on RT.
to watch Tamerlan. Does that sound familiar? It should:
Moussaoui had connections with Chechen terrorists. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that the U.S. government sacrifices the safety of Americans because of its obsession with destabilizing Russia, to which end Chechen rebels are aided.
what were his connections to Chechens? I didn’t know or have forgotten that.
Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons
Okay.
I’d like to run that down myself, but the basics of it are well known to me through my careful study of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce and the activities of our active and (especially retired) intelligence community in the early 1990’s. The same folks that brought us the Bay of Pigs went on to give us Laotian heroin and then to work with the Shah during the Ford administration on his military buildup and then to secret arming of Iran in the 1981-86 period and then to sending veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War into Azerbaijan to fight the war with Armenia. The trail got murky after that, both because Clinton became president and because the way the thing migrated north into Dagestan and Chechnya has never been clear and has never been tightly linked to the old crew, who mostly retired or died off in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
What’s still pretty clear is that we were using mujahideen from the Afghan-Soviet war to destabilize the caucuses in the early 1990s and that it created a very quiet war between the U.S. and Russia which got tied up in the Chechen and Dagestan independence movements. We also had similar issues with Albanians and Kosovars in the Balkan Wars. We liked using Islamic radicals against godless communists until it came back to bite us with the 1993 WTC bombing. And, even then, we didn’t really learn our lesson until 9/11.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole, go google about how Ayman al-Zawahiri was detained by Russians in Dagestan who held him for months without (allegedly) knowing who he really was. They released him only to have him go immediately join up his organization (Egyptian Islamic Jihad) with bin-Laden’s al-qaeda. That then caused a rift in EIJ and Zawahiri was removed from the leadership at least for a time. They didn’t want to attack America, but Zawahiri did.
The Obama administration is supporting Islamists, hoping to overthrow the legitimate, secular Syrian government. If we had learned our lesson on 9/11, Obama would leave Syria alone.
As legitimate as a dictatorship can be and only quasi-secular. That said, it’s not our fight and a Sunni fundamentalist regime wouldn’t be an improvement for women and those in Syria that want to live in the 21st century.
Indeed. In every country in the Middle East in which the U.S. and NATO interfere–Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon–women become chattel after having had significant rights under secular regimes.
What bothers me even more than that the West does this is that “humanitarian interventionists” don’t see the problem with replacing autocratic secular (or quasi-secular) Arab regimes with pseudo-democratic Islamist regimes.
It’s not just the right that’s incoherent about Islamism and Muslim terrorism.
Both sides play footsie with the terrorists when they think it serves their turn.
Heck, the neocons wanted to invade Afghanistan and want to bomb Iran.
But they also destroyed the regime in Iraq and supported the rebels in Libya and Egypt, and now are going off in all directions about the rebels in Syria, just like the administration.
Our policy would make more sense if we didn’t have one and just walked away from the whole region.
It seems the uncle has some important and interesting connections in the region:
Seems uncle Ruslan has been a player in the energy sector in central Asia for some time; throughout the period that the West has been scrambling for contracts in the republics also sought by Russia and China.
Uh oh, or Uncle Ruslan may not be the Ruslan Tsarni associated with central Asian energy company players. If they are one and the same, Uncle Ruslan must have “misspoke” a few days ago when he said that his brother left his older children with him when his brother emigrated to the US in 2002 and that he and the children joined his brother in the US in 2004.
Good point. This one is Ruslan “Z” Tsarni. Not that there couldn’t be gaggles of them.
And the 2010 deposition to the Crown as well:
I’m not suggesting this has any particular relevance to the bombing, needless to say, but it places uncle Ruslan in some geopolitical context.
Always good to get a confirmation before jumping to conclusions.
And we have yet another date for when the uncle came to the US — 2008 — and not 2004 that he was quoted as having claimed a day or so ago.
Now off to refresh my memory on Kazakhstan. A gas pipeline contractor I met in a business context almost two decades ago, shuddered when asked about a small contract he had in Kazakhstan in the early 1990s. A loser of a job and that was before he didn’t get paid.
Six degrees of separation says we all have links to a Kyrgyz oil lawyer whom made his career in the cowboy days of the central Asian resource boom working for USAID. But publicly calling out the Kazakh head of state was a daring act which some did not survive.
That he would now be the centre of a media whirlwind, no matter how brief, seems highly ironic, at least.
Indeed. Could his 2010 statement in defense of Ablyzakov have triggered the notice to the FBI about his nephew? Not that I could possibly sort out the relationships amongst all these corrupt players and governments.
Hard to say. But if I were Rustan I would have been taking considerable pains to keep a low profile these days.
Me too. The wealthy Russians and those from the ‘Stan Republics play rough.
Above Ruslan’s motives for deposing to the Crown that Nursultan Nasarbayev was extravagantly corrupt are obscure to say the least.
It was self-incriminating, for one thing, and leaves him open to prosecution as a US citizen under the FCPA, “Ruslan Tsarni … worked “in various capacities” with a closely knit network of associates led by Nazarbayev’s son-in-law from 2000 to 2008 that regularly engaged in fraudulent business practices, he said in a witness statement to the High Court in London in December 2010…”
It also appears to have served no useful purpose in the defence of Mukhtar Ablyazov, who is still on the lam, it made certain enemies of the current and likely powerful BTA management and threw serious dust in the eyes of Nursultan Nasarbayev himself; not to mention obliquely embarrassing the royal family. I just don’t see a motive there, frankly, unless Ablyzov’s money is still sloshing around.
A few billion slosh around for some time.
Hadn’t though of the FCPA angle. But he might have some powerful protectors in this country — who and why I can’t imagine, but could be fodder for the Alex Jones conspiracy nutcases or “truthers.”
Not sure I can see the US granting him immunity from prosecution just so he can climb out on a limb to defend a soon-to-be fugitive while exposing an oil-rich oligarch and his flagrantly corrupt son-in-law whom we’ve arguably been cozying up to for decades. This has me bamboozled, frankly.
Bamboozled and annoyed as well. A plethora of dots that don’t connect. All just chaff? Toss it out and what’s left is just another simple narrative of a disaffected young man with an obsession that led him to blow up people.
It’s as if a piece of all the other recent massacres were tossed in a pot and stirred and out popped the Tsarnaev brothers. Extremely cool and non-suicidal in the commission of the crime like Brevic and McVeigh, but target and location not consonant with the message that Dzhokhar is reported to be claiming and not a home-grown terrorist. Combined, the brothers were like the immigrant Faisal Shazad, except better bomb builders without training at a terrorist camp and no personal connection to the US military actions that offended them.
One difference from all the mass shootings and bombings is the public appearances and statements from so many family members. No family wants to believe that one of their own could perpetrate such a horrendous act, but few doubt it once the initial shock wears off and they choose to remain hidden from public view. For all the messiness, the Tsarnaev family seems more real than that of the other mass killers. Real enough that it’s difficult for me to dismiss them.
I’m still inclined to believe we’re more likely to find the answer in DSM V than anywhere else.
Has the advantage of not needing to connect to anything else. But unlike Columbine (and VA Tech and even Sandy Hook), the massacre began with the personal; they targeted specific individuals for revenge. Absent that, it was more like Aurora except neither of the suspects looked or acted like out of control crazies as they executed their crime.
“…they targeted specific individuals for revenge.” Are you referring to the triple murder? I don’t see Tamerlan doing that, it doesn’t seem to fit his otherwise dissociative pathology.
Oops — Columbine began with specific targets. An initial and single specific target in the cases of VA Tech and Sandy Hook. Those three also ended in suicides. A very different profile from what the Tsarnaev brothers displayed.
wrt to the 9/11/11 triple murder — agree completely with you that Tamerlan had nothing to do with it. Not once in the reporting of that crime before it resurfaced this past week were the victims described as having had their “throats slit.” Pathetic how quickly when a possible Muslim perp surfaced, “slit throats” appeared in reports.
I see; good point about the suicides, too, although it could be argued ‘death by cop’ was a factor. I just can’t figure out the period after the bombing; what could they have been thinking? That they were going to get away with it?
And surely the FBI must have presumed that these guys were long gone when they released the images, no?
Would you mind continuing this discussion in the comment section of the diary I just posted as we’re too far too the right in this thread for easy reading? Could you begin a thread there with your last comment here?
Sandy Hook started with the killer killing his mother. She’s often overlooked in the tragedy.
Did you see this?
http://www.madcowprod.com/2013/04/22/was-boston-bombers-uncle-ruslan-with-the-cia/
I did. And can’t connect those “dots” to bombing the Marathon either.
I can’t either, but it brings in a lot more dots, doesn’t it?
Yes — more dots or more noise which seems to be what the plethora of other dots are turning out to be now that the kid is reported to be confirming the narrative constructed by officials and the media. The nice and simple narrative that we’re always fed after some horrible event. Sometimes true. Sometimes not. And we seem to prefer that the false ones not be revealed as such. Dead suspects are an asset in keeping the storyline simple.
I think the operative phrase is “reported to be”. How the hell would we know?
We don’t. Have to trust that the authorities are merely recording what the suspect freely chooses to disclose. And the suspect will be evaluated by a psychiatrist to assess his rationality because we wouldn’t want to take a false confession.
The Zacarias Moussaoui story is even odder than I’d heard many years ago — if the Wikipedia entry is close to being accurate:
Graduate study in the London, world traveler, and flight school in OK. Not how it works in this country for the children of poor or working class parents.
like another Whitey Bulger.
No visible means of support, ignoring intel from the Russians, and now an unsolved triple murder involving a sparring partner-roommate.
Crimes are always annoying. I’ve had my place broken into a few times, and it’s very annoying. But as for counsel? I’m probably the only person in the United States who wants Mr. Tsarnaev to get the best legal counsel money can buy. Heck, I may even throw them a c-note once an attorney is appointed.
Why? Because I believe in the Constitution. I think it’s strong enough to overcome our fears, real or ginned-up. It’s durable enough to be used for the losers who broke into my place as well as this young man. I want Mr. Tsarnaev to be able to face his accusers, be presented with the witnesses and evidence against him, tried in open court under regular rules of criminal procedure, all of which are governed by previously promulgated, well-defined rules, particularly the one that says innocent until proven guilty.
By the way, this isn’t altruism, except insofar as I may someday have to stand in the dock, accused of some minor misdeed or infamous crime. And then, I want every protection the Constitution affords me, in full and without exception, even if someone’s really, really scared.
That’s what’s supposed to make us the good guys.
I am amazed you believe this.
And clearly out of step with the public pronouncements of any number of our faultless elected officials, who apparently think the Constitution is too fragile and delicate to be used for anything as rough-and-tumble as its actual application to reality.
2 Arrested in Al-Qaida Linked Canada Plot
Yeah, I guess that Iran works with al-Qaida, in the same way that Saddam Hussein worked with al-Qaida. No wait, that was a neocon lie.
Am I the only one who finds this story to be annoying, too? Gee, too much homeland security failure in Boston allowing a couple of Chechens—whom we have been supporting in our ongoing effort to destabilize Russia—to kill and maim a bunch of Americans. Can’t let that distract us from the constant war drumbeat against Iran. Time for our brilliant security services to thwart another terrorist attack.
I don’t think that at their worst, Soviet and Nazi propaganda were as primitive as what we are now being subjected to.
Mr. Esseghaier has a lengthy public profile, including several academic publications on new methods for detecting prostate cancer and HIV, and a profile page on the professional networking site Linkedin that is illustrated with the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Iraqi insurgent groups affiliated with al Qaeda. [See also the Al Nusra Front fighting in Syria]
More information in my comment here.
New developments:
Slain Boston Bomb Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev Eyed in Jewish Triple Murder in Waltham, Mass. (2011)
Tipped by Alexander and Shaun Appleby
See my new diary – Tsarnaev Eyed in Jewish Triple Murder in 2011.
If a pressure cooker bomb is a weapon of mass destruction, so would be an IED like the ones which abounded in Iraq. Finally we can conclusively say that Iraq, if not Saddam himself, had weapons of mass destruction. Therefore the Bush Gang didn’t lie and the invasion of Iraq was justified. But I thought WMD referred to nuclear, chemical weapons, etc. not small esplosive devices. That was silly of me. Now we can say that almost every country in the world has WMD at its disposal. About the finances: how the Tsarnaevs financed the attack is a fundamental question that needs answering. It is odd that anyone would find the issue unimportant or irrelevant. But if it turns out that some other person or group did finance the brothers, I doubt we will ever hear anything about it.
I get your point regarding IEDs but you also have to realize that there are different accepted definitions for the term ‘WMD’ based on context. What is considered a WMD in a military sense is different than in a civilian context.
I didn’t know that. Yes, the pressure cooker bombs fit the official US definition, which in turn fits the US’s needs: we do not use WMD in military operations no matter how destructive of life and property they may be because we say so. So, put that in your pipe and smoke it. I suppose the bombs that Sunni insurgents in Iraq and others used against Iraqis would then NOT fit the US definition and Saddam may have been hiding them. But then of course if the homeland is the battlefield as alleged by everyone’s favorite fruitcakes, McCain and buddy, the brothers used their bombs in a military situation and they then could not be considered WMD. Or am I wrong? No matter how you twist and turn it, the situation is a miserable hoot.
Why would the US military use “pressure cooker bombs” when they can purchase much more sophisticated and destructive bombs? The differing legal definitions are sort of like those for crack and cocaine — crack is a poor person’s cocaine and if caught leads to prison and cocaine is what ramps up Wall St traders who get federal bail-outs for screwing up the world’s financial system.
The confession probably won’t be admissible, but it might.
A conservative court might allow it under that by now infamous and totally misunderstood public safety exception to the Miranda rule.
Assuming Obama’s federal prosecutors want to give it a shot.
And wasn’t the shooting of the MIT cop a state rather than a federal crime?
From a civil liberties standpoint this could all turn out very well, since the Obama Administration will be forced (or not) to publicly steamroll a suspect’s rights (or not) in the way they’ve been secretly doing it for years.
Also, if everyone plays their cards right (which probably won’t happen) we’ll be forced as a society to confront and resolve the arbitrariness in our legal and colloquial definitions of “terrorism,” which have been deliberately obscured since well before Bush (meaning, the people running him) seized the post-9/11 opportunity to make his “harboring terrorists”/”enemy combatant” power-grab.
I usually agree with nearly everything Booman posts, but I can’t get my head around the “cost of an attorney” objection. What — we can’t afford it? There are all kinds of reasons to ensure that he’s got the best representation available. It just seems like such a minor quibble.
Then they shouldn’t assure me that there is no evidence of a wider conspiracy. I don’t care about providing a defense. I care about the truth and catching everyone responsible. Broke college students with broke parents don’t have a mercedes in the shop, an apartment, a college tuition, a small arsenal, and a history of international travel. If he’s broke, then we need to find his coconspirators.
But you’re changing the subject — you’re equating “hidden source of income” with “evidence of a wider conspiracy.”
I’ve known many people at various times in my life who don’t seem to have any visible means of support (and who send their kids to great schools with full scholarships) but are constantly buying expensive cars, going on trips to Europe, etc. I figure there’s money somewhere in the family, that’s all. It doesn’t point to a criminal conspiracy in and of itself.
Of course it does, in and of itself. You provided an explanation: a hidden source of money. Well, what is it?
A hidden source of income doesn’t constitute a criminal conspiracy.
Of course it doesn’t. It constitutes a question that needs to be answered before you can begin spouting off about all indications are that they acted alone.
For example, under your scenario that there is family money, is that family money in the control of the suspect. Is it in a bank account? A trust? Okay, then pay for your lawyer.
You’re tying the question of investigating criminal activity together with the question of providing counsel to those who can’t pay in a way that seems confused.
Either you’re saying that they should investigate his finances for evidence of wrongdoing or you’re saying that they should “force” him to pay for an attorney; the two questions are muddled together in your presentation.
It shouldn’t be confusing.
We are told two things simultaneously:
They appear to have been unemployed, yet they had cars, they lived in a house, one of them went to college in which he paid room and board. They had plenty of cash to buy guns and ammunition and electrical supplies. One of them had money to travel abroad for six months, perhaps without working while he was there.
The father was alienated from his siblings, in poor health, and last known to make his living fixing cars on the street.
So, where did the money come from?
A generous aunt? Credit cards and loans? Drug dealing? Inheritance?
These guys supposedly had to rob someone for cash because they had none. What? They spent it all on bombs and parties?
What I want is a narrative that makes sense. I don’t begrudge anyone legal representation and that’s not the point. I’m much more concerned about the premature effort to sell the “acted alone” narrative that is preferred by authorities even when it is too early to say. And if it isn’t too early to say, then show us.
Booman, do you seriously think that they are not looking into the finances of the two brothers?
Yes, of course they are.
And, yet, they are telling us nothing about them while assuring us that they acted alone, that they had money for college and rent and utilities and bombs and guns, but they were also so broke that they had to carjack a man and force him to make ATM withdrawals.
So broke that they don’t have enough money, or liquid or non-liquid assets to afford an attorney.
My point is that if they really had no resources at all, then who paid for international vacations? Who paid the bills? Who paid for car insurance? Who paid for college? Who paid for bomb materials and guns? Who paid for internet service?
Now, maybe it was someone in the family. Maybe it was their Dad who fixed cars in the street before he got so ill that he went home to Dagestan and left his kids to fend for themselves?
Regardless, it seems like they ought to run down where the money was coming from (and that may take some time) before they start assuring us that these guys conceived the plan, paid for the plan, and executed the plan with no witting help from anyone. Don’t you think?
Are you at all familiar with the underground cash economy in this country? The network of “friends” or friends of friend within poorer and/or immigrant communities that allows individuals to own newer cars — or even an older Mercedes. (Doubt any of them would have been registered in Dzhokhar’s name.) There’s also “working the system” — food stamps and housing assistance. Some work — possibly sketchy — for cash. Did Tam need more than the cost of plane fare to travel to Dagestan? Any one of several relatives could have paid for that. His wife allegedly worked and presumably paid the rent and would be surprised if she didn’t also request and receive “emergency funds” from her parents as so many younger (and not so young) people do these days.
His father’s car repair work would have been for cash as would his mother’s facials from her home.
The pressure cooker bombs were cheap to build. The authorities haven’t released any information on the guns they allegedly possessed, but doubt they were like the high priced pieces Adam Lanza had access to.
Really not a stretch to accept that Dzhokhar is destitute.
Yes, all of those things could be true. And before I went and told the public that there no indications that they had any help, I’d want to carefully construct a network of contacts, especially those who gave them money, paid their bills, bought their plane tickets, etc.
They are in such a hurry to reassure everyone that they make statements that are not credible simply because they haven’t had the time to reach those kinds of conclusions.
Why was the older boy on the Russian’s radar?
Why are the Russians and the Americans banning each other’s citizens from traveling?
What do we know about the young man’s seven months in Dagestan and Chechnya?
Who transferred money to them?
What do their friends say about where they got money?
Who bought their cars?
There is a ton of investigating left to do.
Pls. don’t do this to me, I’m still stuck with the Kennedy assassinations, MLK, etc.
Easy access to a website with quite a few scenes before and after blast near finish line. Someone needs to answer many questions …
Subject: FBI handlers, CRAFT International
What is Craft International Private Military Forces doing at the Boston Marathon with a squadron of men and an unmarked black SUV that’s fully equipped.
YouTube video Suspects & Black Backpacks ! Boston Marathon Bombing Event!
Holy shit. At 12:53 ?
http://www.athenstalks.com/boston-globe-reported-controlled-explosion
Agree that those and many other questions should be raised, investigated, and answered. However, at this time doesn’t seem to serve any purpose to begin that conversation from questioning the appointment of a public defender.
Cambridge and Boston both have living wage laws on the books; the current wage in Boston is $13.49 an hour (couldn’t find it for Cambridge). I’ve read that the Tamarlan Tsarnaev’s wife was working 80 hours a week as a home health aide. If she was working at more than one company, she may have been earning more than $50k a year; if she worked all 80 hours for the same company and got overtime, her income may have been more than $70k.
“Broke college students with broke parents don’t have… a small arsenal,”
But they could easily have one gun, with which they shot the MIT officer in an attempt (unsuccessful due to his holster locking system) to steal his gun. That’s the report I heard earlier today from a local news broadcast about why Sean Collier was murdered.
I can’t find a cite to back up this report, but do recall hearing it this morning, for what it’s worth.
Cross-posted from my diary – Tsarnaev Eyed in Jewish Triple Murder in 2011.
What is annoying about this story is the idea that someone who commits a crime immediately sacrifices all of their rights. That a law enforcement statement is prima facie proof of guilt. That no defense is permitted even if the evidence looks open-and-shut. That the prosecutor has free rein to decide how or whether the case goes to trial. Or that a US citizen can automatically sacrifice the rights of citizenship by attacking the US. On all of these, the Constitution and the arguments of the rebellious Founding Fathers say otherwise.
Graham and McCain are defending the whole notion of enemy combatants outside of the protections of prisoners of war, something that they opposed a decade ago. Given the effectiveness of Article III courts in convicting terrorists and the fact that the first military commission trials have not come to conclusion after a decade, Graham and McCain most likely realize that they are just posturing against the administration to try to look tough. Looking tough, however, never has been a criteria for justice.
I think the operative phrase is “reported to be”. How the hell would we know?