Tennessee, Georgia Republican lawmakers disagree over legal path in Boston bombing case

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

WASHINGTON – Republican lawmakers from Tennessee and Georgia are at odds over the degree of legal protections owed a controversial American citizen – the Boston Marathon bombing suspect.

Senior senators and elder GOP statesmen from both states said authorities erred in providing an attorney to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Instead, Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander said, authorities should have interrogated the 19-year-old naturalized American citizen for a month in isolation to “learn what else he knows, what his connections are.” Georgia’s Saxby Chambliss agreed, saying law enforcement officials should have indefinitely questioned Tsarnaev without assigning counsel or reading his right to remain silent.

“I don’t know why they gave him his Miranda rights,” Alexander said in an interview. “I would think for a terrorist, even though he’s a United States citizen, that it’s appropriate to take a longer period of time to interrogate him before you give him his Miranda rights.”

Asked how long he meant, Alexander said 30 days “might be a reasonable period of time.”