As I See It...

by Jim Jorgensen
NAFA Dep. Exec. Dir.

Miranda Mania & Mythology

As one of my ATF special agent trainees was fingerprinting a defendant the jerk (Not the trainee.) turned to me and said, “You’ve really f***ed up now!! You’ve asked me a lot of questions, but you didn’t first advise me of my rights.” My terse reply to this moron was, “I don’t need any information from you to send you to prison for a decade or more.” He shut up with a crestfallen look on his face.

And so…Hollywood and television struck again giving the public and this defendant a skewed concept of so-called “Miranda Rights.” Unfortunately, too many police, too many special agents, practically all the bosses and even most prosecuting lawyers and judges buy into this Hollywood version of “Miranda Rights” which goes something like this: Within one nano-second of being arrested, every criminal must be quickly given his “Miranda Rights.” Failure by the arresting officer to do this will immediately result in some major catastrophe….and maybe even….global warming. So much for the “mania.” Let’s look at Miranda “mythology” a bit.

Mythology surrounding the necessity of giving Miranda Rights begins when the handcuffs are put on a suspect’s wrists. This is “mythology” because actually arresting someone isn’t the only Miranda-triggering situation. In fact, current legal standards suggest giving the warning when a theoretical “reasonable man” would consider his freedom to be restricted. This could even happen in a guy’s living room with an uncuffed homeowner

surrounded by several burly officers who won’t even let him get off the couch.

Of course, the most recent bit of Miranda nonsense involves the so-called “underwear bomber,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger plane bound for Detroit. Who needed more information from this guy to successfully prosecute him? My God, there was a planeload of witnesses and a crotch load of incriminating evidence! And yet….the media, Congress and the Executive Branch have gone round and round regarding this terrorist’s Miranda Rights. Here’s what I would’ve done with Umar instead:

I would have immediately spirited him away to nearby Selfridge Joint Use military air base where he would have been thrown (and I do mean “thrown”) on an Air Force cargo jet bound for Gitmo. A couple hours later officers unconcerned about a relatively trivial criminal prosecution would’ve been extracting timely and useful intelligence from this terrorist.
Can you spell “drone?”