Here’s the way the law works now: When a suspect (domestic — not terrorist) requests an attorney for questioning, the police are required to provide one. It’s your right to legal representation during the interrogation, basically. Well, guess what? The Obama Administration thinks that’s a totally overrated right and is seeking to eliminate it.
The effort to sweep aside the 23-year-old Michigan vs Jackson ruling is one of several moves by the new government to have dismayed civil rights groups. …
The Michigan vs Jackson ruling in 1986 established that, if a defendants have a lawyer or have asked for one to be present, police may not interview them until the lawyer is present.
Any such questioning cannot be used in court even if the suspect agrees to waive his right to a lawyer because he would have made that decision without legal counsel, said the Supreme Court.
However, in a current case that seeks to change the law, the US Justice Department argues that the existing rule is unnecessary and outdated.
The sixth amendment of the US constitution protects the right of criminal suspects to be “represented by counsel”, but the Obama regime argues that this merely means to “protect the adversary process” in a criminal trial.
The Justice Department, in a brief signed by Elena Kagan, the solicitor general, said the 1986 decision “serves no real purpose” and offers only “meagre benefits”.
Ed Morrissey plays the “What if Bush/McCain had done this” game, but we all know how that would’ve turned out. The ACLU would’ve been OUTRAGED!!1!, Congressional Democrats would’ve been calling for investigations, comparisons of the men to Hitler would’ve been on the rise, and the media would cover it 24/7. Instead, we’re reading this in an online British newspaper and some on the left are trying to actually justify the move.
Rights for terrorists but not for trespassers, apparently.
Via Hot Air.
by Stephan Tawney on Sat, Apr 25, 2009