14 y/o Muslim student arrested for bringing "bomb" to school[It was a Clock]

[Tiberius]

All that means is that anything the kid says while in custody cannot be used against him in court.  It does nothing to prevent the cops from humiliating the kid which seems to have been their prime motivation.

I don't think it does Min. The wording specifically says that "[the child] is entitled to be accompanied by the child’s parent, guardian, or other custodian or by the child’s attorney". The keyword there is "entitled". If Ahmed asked to phone his parents, or ask that his parents be with him, and they refused, they are violating that entitlement.

[Minimalist]

Yes, but what is the remedy, Tibs?  With Miranda if the cops do not read a person their rights then they are barred from using any statements made in subsequent court proceedings.  A minor questioned without parent or counsel would get the same protection but no one is going to fly into the interrogation room, kick open the door and shout "CEASE AND DESIST YOU DEMONS IN BLUE!"

Okay - a little poetic license there at the end.

[Tiberius]

No, but these rules are there usually so that after the fact, the police can be reprimanded. Anyone can at any time ignore a law, even if they are the police, and there's little that can be done at that particular point to stop them. However, once a law has been violated, the person (or in this case, the department) responsible can be investigated and charged with a crime.

Ahmed's rights will forever remain violated, nothing can change that, but courts exist to punish the people doing the violating, and potentially forcing the police to pay compensation to Ahmed for the violation. That's the remedy.

[Minimalist]

[TheRocketSurgeon]

It does not do the subject of the arrest any immediate good but it does preclude law enforcement from acting upon anything they do learn as a result of their malfeasance. 

It is, in fact, such a serious blow to a criminal investigation that any cop who does it deserves to be reprimanded by his own side.  He just crapped all over the case if there were a case and that is what seems to be the situation in Dallas.  They knew there was no threat.  They were just busting this kid's balls.  Now, we can speculate on WHY they were busting his balls all we like but it is Texas and we have this:

^^That all assumes that the judge is willing to follow the rule about excluding such evidence. Since 1920, they have come up with dozens of ways to skirt that principle. Sometimes they are overturned on appeal, but just as often the appeals courts will use the deferential standard given to trial judges' decisions, when upholding a conviction on appeal, that the appellant essentially has to prove the jury was prejudiced in their decision by the tainted evidence (appeals courts love to hide behind the jury, when dodging issues like this). It's ridiculous and heartbreaking to read some of the cases. Spending about two hours on LexisNexus reading case law on the subject will make your skin crawl.

The Drug War, the "War on Crime", and the "War on Terror" have all combined to effectively eradicate the rights that our TV shows like to fantasize as still-extant, for the consumption of the Average Joe 'Murkan.

[Minimalist]

[Cyberman]

[Minimalist]

They are nothing if not predictable, Stim.

[SteelCurtain]

Yup. It was only a matter of time.

[TheRocketSurgeon]