Perhaps the confusion will clear up when the special
interrogators tell a prisoner who wants to remain silent or won’t speak without
a lawyer that they can continue to question him and deny him a lawyer because
nothing he divulges to them can be used against him at trial, anyway.
What the administration is doing is related to but not
narrowly based on the public safety exception to the Miranda rule.
The rule says information obtained by questioning a suspect
before he is advised of his right to remain silent, his right to counsel, and
that anything he says can be used against him in court is not admissible.
The rule does not actually apply to the questioning the
administration proposes since from the beginning the point is to obtain
information for public safety that will not be used for prosecutorial purposes.
But neither does the
exception.
The exception to the rule allows prosecutorial use of
information obtained from a suspect not advised of his rights owing to the need
to question him right away for the public safety.
Given prosecutorial use is not intended, anyway, the public
safety exception is not actually relevant.
I suppose if they have to the administration could always
claim to be holding and questioning the kid as a material witness.
GW's administration did that more than once.
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