Lying in a hospital bed, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged today with using weapons of mass destruction in last week's Boston Marathon bombing. Some politicians have demanded that he not be tried in federal court but that he be designated an enemy combat, which would deprive him of his rights as an American citizen. At the White House today, spokesman Jay Carney announced, "He will not be prosecuted as an enemy combatant. We prosecute this terrorist through our civil system of justice under US law" in federal criminal court. There's still debate about that, and about whether the FBI "dropped the ball" when Russia asked about Tamerlan, Tsarnaev's now-deceased older brother. We update those controversies and hear what's at stake for American Muslims.
Prosecuting the Boston Bombing Suspect
Credits
Guests:
- Andrew Cohen - senior editor at The Marshall Project, and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice - @JustADCohen
- Kevin Williamson - National Review - @KevinNR
- William Braniff - National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism - @BraniffBill
- Hedieh Mirahmadi - World Organization for Resource Development and Education - @WORDEorg