YOU CAN NOT BE SERIOUS! STATEMENTS MADE BY ALLEGED MLK PARADE BOMBER THROWN OUT; WASN'T READ MIRANDA RIGHTS!

Folks are already pissed that the attempted bombing of a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade allegedly by a white supremacist got so little attention by the media, compared to the massive coverage a possible bomb the media believes was planted by Muslim terrorists gets, especially given Rep. Peter King’s hearings on the Muslim community concerning terrorism (which started a day before Kevin Harpham was arrested for the attempted parade bombing) and ESPECIALLY after some silly teabagger woman – who apparently considers herself a “right-wing extremist” since she refered to the DHS report that warned about them – approached Obama in the now famous exchange when she said that “90% of domestic terrorist attacks are done by left wing environmental radicals, and not people like me.” (untrue – and how much you want to bet that woman can’t cite a credible source for the 90% stat?) Well, now the kid gloves of this case has found it’s way to the courtroom, but it seems that everytime the feds deal with white supremacists they come across like Keystone Cops. The Spokane case just suffered a serious setback because they didn’t read Harpham his Miranda rights before he made some damning statements. Now those statements are thrown out. With right-wing extremists getting bolder and bolder with a mainstream conservative media and activist base providing them cover every chance they get, the last thing we want to see is this clown walking.

TPMMuckraker

The FBI’s decision not to immediately advise a suspected terrorist of his Miranda rights upon his arrest has upset a federal judge and caused prosecutors to agree not to use statements he made prior to being advised of his rights in court.

Senior U.S. District Jude Justin Quackenbush of the Eastern District of Washington ruled last week that FBI agents subjected Kevin Harpham, the man with ties to white supremacist groups accused of attempting to bomb a parade in Washington state on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, to “the functional equivalent of interrogation” before he was advised of his rights.

Quackenbush, who indicated he was upset over the way the agents handled the Harpham case at a previous hearing, found that the government didn’t comply with the federal rule of criminal procedure. Federal prosecutors subsequently indicated that they wouldn’t use any of the statements made by Harpham before he was advised of his Miranda rights against him.

Given the timing of Harpham’s arrest in January, he was likely one of the first cases that took place after Attorney General Eric Holder issued a memo outlining the special circumstances under which FBI agents could question terrorism suspects without first advising them of their rights, though the precise reasoning is impossible to know because a judge sealed the courtroom during an FBI agent’s testimony.

Unsurprisingly, the decision in a terrorism case involving a non-Muslim hasn’t raised the ire of the usual detractors of the use of civilian court systems against terrorism suspects. That wasn’t the case when fellow U.S. citizen Faisal Shahzad was arrested for allegedly attempting to set off a bomb in Times Square, when there were plenty of high-profile politicians asking why FBI agents advised him of his Miranda rights.

Harpham’s trial has been delayed because of concerns that publicity about the unveiling of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. the same week that the trial date was set to begin might influence the jury, the Associated Press reported.