MSNBC's Hayes Raises Miranda Rights Issue While Covering Standoff with Boston Bomber
On Friday night, during MSNBC's live coverage of the police standoff with bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, host Chris Hayes seemed to still be worried about the issue of "Mirandizing" the terror suspect, as he took time to ask NBC's Pete Williams whether the authorities would be "proceeding according to the textbook" in giving him "due process."
A few days earlier on Tuesday's All In show, Hayes had fretted that any terror suspects might not be read Miranda rights as he called it a "disgrace" that Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins had recommended not doing so if any suspects turned out to be noncitizens.
A bit past 8:30 p.m. on Friday, as Pete Williams filled in viewers on the standoff, Hayes brought up Miranda rights as he posed:
Final question for you, Pete (Williams). You just said, "capture him and put him on trial." Senator Lindsey Graham has tweeted today about essentially urging the Obama administration to consider not Mirandizing, not using the standard procedures of due process for someone in a criminal proceeding, but to declare him an enemy combatant or to do some other parallel kind of legal regime.
My question to you is: Are investigators, I imagine, are investigators are proceeding according to the textbook in this case, which is essentially due process, the U.S. Constitution, FBI, DOJ procedure. Is that right?
Williams did not get to respond due to an apparent technical problem breaking the connection.
-- Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center
