After two weeks in government custody, alleged Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad is scheduled to appear in court today:
The suspect in the botched car bombing in Times Square was to make a first appearance in federal court on Tuesday, prosecutors said.
Faisal Shahzad would appear in court on five felony charges related to the May 1 botched bombing, they said.
Generally, suspects in a crime are supposed to be brought before a judge within 48 hours of being arrested. According to the government, Shahzad waived this right during questioning, which is why he hasn't been before a judge or seen a lawyer in two weeks.
This case is supposed to be the catalyst for the administration's decision to "modernize" Miranda by allowing law enforcement to delay presentment before a judge as well as postpone reading someone their Miranda rights. But it sounds like Shahzad waived his rights because he was talking--which begs the question of why you would need to delay presentment for the purposes of intelligence collection since, if the individual in question is cooperating, he can just waive that right.
If the government had the authority to hold someone who wasn't waiving that right, what would be the difference between that and a civilian system of indefinite detention, practically speaking? The question seems easy to dismiss in a situation where the accused seems obviously guilty, but there will be future situations that will be far less cut and dry.
-- A. Serwer
