Debate Over Reading the Boston Bomber His Miranda Rights [POLL]

As you probably know by know, the Boston Marathon terrorist was not read his Miranda rights when he was arrested on Friday night. Instead, the Obama administration used the public-safety exception. This gives the FBI 48 hours to question Dzhokhar Tsarnaev before having to read him his Miranda rights. Remember, Tsarnaev is a U.S. citizen. The public-safety exception can be used if the FBI believes there are imminent threats to public safety. As the Daily Caller points out, that is a grey area.

Ultimately, the case reached the Supreme Court, which decided that such public-safety exceptions do exist. “Miranda need not be strictly followed in situations ‘in which police officers ask questions reasonably prompted by a concern for the public safety,’” says the FBI.

In Tsarnaev’s case, it remains unclear whether there are remaining imminent threats to public safety, but the Obama administration seems to be proceeding with caution.

President Obama is also under outside pressure to forgo reading those Miranda rights to Tsarnaev, with some Republican lawmakers calling on the president to treat the American citizen as an “enemy combatant.”

“If captured, I hope [a]dministration will at least consider holding the Boston suspect as enemy combatant for intelligence gathering purposes,” Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted Friday afternoon.

“The last thing we may want to do is read Boston suspect Miranda Rights telling him to ‘remain silent,’” he wrote.

What do you think should have happened? Since the suspect is a U.S. citizen, should he have been read his Miranda rights or was the government right in using the public-safety exception?