I know, I know. Asking “What if Bush did it?” is getting pretty old. But come on. What if Bush did this?
The latest move by the Obama administration is denying criminal suspects the right to counsel during interrogations. No major US media outlet is reporting this news. We have to find out from our British friends. At least the media over there is concerned about the rights of Americans.
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.
President Barack Obama has already provoked controversy by backing the continued imprisonment without trial of enemy combatants in Afghanistan and by limiting the rights of prisoners to challenge evidence used to convict them.
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a current case that seeks to change the law, the US Justice Department argues that the existing rule is unnecessary and outdated.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.
This is unbelievable. Ed Morrissey sums it up perfectly.
Rolling back Michigan v Jackson would be a mistake. People who ask for an attorney should get one without further questioning. Americans have the right to counsel at all stages of the process, not just in court, as Obama argues. The adversarial process begins with arrest and interrogation, not when people first face a judge. While Miranda has been turned into a fetish, Michigan actually does the work Miranda promises — to get people counsel when they most need it. That does serve a real purpose, despite what Obama argues.
Wasn’t Barack Obama supposed to be a Constitutional scholar? Was that in the How To Dismantle school of thought?
All the US media wants to talk about these days is whether or not an old practice of waterboarding high level terror suspects was wrong, yet not a peep while the current administration wishes to revoke the rights of American citizens.
Where is the ACLU, NY Times, Wash Post, and other proctectors of our rights? They seem to be quite selective in whose rights they want to protect, and who is threatening them.
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