Judge Andrew Napolitano slammed Sen. Lindsey Graham's suggestion that Ahmad Rahami, who is suspected of terrorist attacks in New York and New Jersey, be placed in indefinite military custody as an "enemy combatant" rather than held as a civilian criminal suspect, telling Fox News that stripping a person of due process is catastrophic and prohibited by the Constitution.
Graham argued that if Rahami was an enemy combatant, he could be questioned without a lawyer or a Miranda warning, The New York Times reported.
The senator insisted on Fox that "Holding Rahami as an enemy combatant to determine whether he has ties to terrorist groups, whether he was working for or funded by them, and whether there are co-conspirators, and then trying him in our civilian system for his terrorist acts is the best way to protect our country first, and then achieve justice."
But Napolitano said that "The idea that we have the natural right to due process, essentially fairness from the government, a jury trial and all the protections the Constitution provides and those rights can't be taken away from us because we are hated or feared."
When the judge was pressed to consider that perhaps society needs a more effective way to extract intelligence from such potentially dangerous terrorists who are out to cause great harm to the country, Napolitano said he could understand Graham's wish for more crucial information from the suspect, "but if every time somebody attacks us, we strip them of their civil liberties, we don't have any liberties left ourselves. These are guarantees in the Constitution. What is the value of a guarantee if it goes away because we hate and fear the person whose rights are guaranteed?"
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