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Rather unusual....
Magistrate judge reads Boston Bomber his Miranda rights, whereupon he stops talking. Am I the only one that finds this strange? It was apparently at the initial appearance, held in his hospital room. At the initial appearance, the judge informs the defendant of the charges against him, and reviews conditions of release (obviously, not applicable here), and appoints an attorney if necessary. Rule 5.1, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. That's it. No Miranda warnings. I've never heard of anything like this happening.
The Supreme Court has held that a Miranda violation occurs only when resulting testimony is sought to be admitted at trial, not when the questioning occurs. So there was no ongoing violation to be halted, even if a judge had that power. And answers secured without the defendant being Mirandized are still admissible for some purposes, i.e., contradicting his claims at trial (you can't use the statements to prove he is guilty, only to show he's lying when he claims to be innocent. Go figure).
The only sense I can make of it (making the assumption that the judge didn't just want him to shut up) is that the magistrate figured it was a shame that he wasn't being Mirandized, and took it upon herself to do so. I think that calls for impeachment. (Yes, you can impeach a magistrate. You can impeach any Federal employee. The Framers thought the government would be very small, numbering in the dozens or so of decisionmakers, and so made the power broad:
"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
"The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior...."
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It's somehow treasonous to inform somebody of their fifth amendment rights?
By what rational process could the above commentor get from "impeach" to specifically treason? A judge is supposed to be impartial. *If* the judge took it on herself to be an advocate for one party at the expense of the rights of the other, there might be an argument for impeachment. That is how you get from providing legal advice to the accused to possible impeachment.
Ken in NH beat me to it on the popehat recommendation.
Former federal prosecutor of jihadists Andrew McCarthy's take on it, with lots of additional context, e.g.:
"But in their twisted conceit that the threat to our nation results not from the enemy’s ideology but from American aggression, they have convinced themselves that American aggression (what the rest of us call national defense) must be hamstrung by civilian due process — that war can be reduced to crime, even if the enemy declines to play by the rules.
So in the effort to tame you into believing civilian due process has proved wildly successful in the Marathon bombing investigation, just as Obama and Holder promised it would, the government is now strategically leaking interrogation details."
Once someone is arrested for a federal offense, that person has to be taken before a magistrate "without unnecessary delay." If the arrest is without a warrant, a complaint has to be filed "promptly."
Once the person is before the magistrate, the magistrate is required by Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 5(d0, to advise the person, among other things, of his right not to make a statement, and that anything he says can be used against him.
The real question, it would seem, is not the warning, but how the case got into the posture that the magistrate's warning was necessary, that is the timing of the arrest and complaint.
I see a different issue here. This is a kid who recently graduated from an American high school and passed a citizenship exam, yet didn't know his rights under interrogation. Shame on the Mass. educational system!
The Popehat explanation could be correct but loses a lot of credibility by its pomposity and snarkiness.
"contradicting his claims at trial (you can't use the statements to prove he is guilty, only to show he's lying when he claims to be innocent. Go figure)." That's a higher-level admission than the concept of impeachement of a witness is generally directed at, but it certainly would be an interesting case, sure to go to the Supreme Court, if the prosecutor had an "I murdered the person and this is how' statement,and at sometime in the trial the defendant says, "I did not murder the person for whose death we are here to try me, and on cross the prosecutor introduced the non-Mirandized statement for impeachment of that statement.
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This explanation seemed satisfactory to me.