A slippery slope?

Recently, I came across an article on Huffington Post that stated one of the Boston marathon terrorist suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would not be read his Miranda rights. This shocked and immediately interested me because of how this relates to my junior theme topic of wrongful convictions. Miranda rights are the rights stated to a suspect after their arrest and utilized by law enforcement to make a suspect aware of their rights as a US citizen (mirandarights.org). In many cases of wrongful convictions, innocent adults and children are convicted of crimes they have not committed because they either are not read there Miranda rights or do not understand their Miranda rights. However, in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarvaev, he will not be read his Miranda rights because because the government is invoking a public safety exception. A public safety exception is when the police can interrogate a suspect without offering him or her the benefit of their Miranda rights if he or she could have information that is urgent for the safety of the public. Although it may seem strange to say that a terrorist suspect should be read their Miranda rights, it does make you think about the power the government in regards to your rights as a United States citizen.

A photograph of Dzhokar Tsarnaev

It is completely understandable why Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will not be read his Miranda rights because of the extreme danger he put thousands of people in during the Boston marathon and the chase to capture him, but it raises the question on how much control the government has in choosing who gets read their Miranda rights. If the United State government can take away the rights of  Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, why wouldn’t the government take away any of our rights at any point? This controversy has really made me think long and hard about our rights as citizens in the United States and still has me switching viewpoints whenever I stop to think about it. On one end, the government is protecting our safety, however on the other end, the government is taking away the rights of people. Also, once an exception has been made, the government will try to broaden the exception because of political pressure and general hysteria, so will the public safety exception start a slippery slope? So, should the United States government continue to implement the public safety exception to protect the public immediate danger from bombing suspects like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

What Do We Do?

A photograph from Duke Law of Lamonte Armstrong and his
legal team that helped free him. 

How would you feel if you spent years locked away in a prison cell for a crime you were innocent of committing? Confused, lost, and a little bit fearful of the unknown, just as Lamonte Armstrong felt? Well, Armstrong no longer has to feel that way. Just last July, Lamonte Armstrong was released from prison after being locked up for seventeen years.  In 1998, Armstrong was wrongfully convicted of murdering a university professor after she was found dead in her Greensboro home. Armstrong maintained his innocent throughout the trial-- from the time the police first interviewed him to the his guilty verdict. ONe of the main pieces of evidence against Armstrong was an informant testimony. However, just six years later, the informant himself was charged with a murder (Duke Law). But what can our American criminal justice system do to help stop innocent people like Lamonte Armstrong being wrongly convicted and incarcerated for years? Well, it turns out there are a lot of  simple changes that could potentially help solve the problem. 
       Armstrong's main piece of evidence against him was the informant testimony, however, rarely do people falsely testify without getting something in return; although there are many motivations, most often they do so for money.  Simply not offering compensation an informant's testimony can drastically reduce wrongful convictions caused by false informant testimonies. Another simple change the double-blind administration of police lineups would help prevent false eyewitness identification. A double-blind police lineup is when neither the administrator nor the witness knows the identity of the suspect, and so the administrator cannot influence the witness in any way (National Institute of Justice). Solutions to the problems do ont stop here. There are hundreds of different ways in which our American criminal justice system can reduce the number of wrongful convictions, but why isn't our American criminal justice system implementing these simple changes?