Guilty or not, this seems more like a kidnapping than an arrest. Can they really ignore all rights as they see fit?
Contra the original article, a 23 year-old does not have a fundamental right to talk to mommy and daddy once arrested.
Law enforcement is under no obligation to arrest you as you arrive in country so that you can become a cause celebre to the conference you are about to attend. Neither are they under any obligation to tell you ahead of time that they plan to arrest you.
While the accused has rights, the friends, family, and casual acquaintances of the accused have none. Law enforcement must give Marcus' lawyer access to him, but need not tell random strangers where he is being detained. In the first day or so it is not at all uncommon for someone who has been arrested to be moved from the initial arrest point to a location in the jurisdiction of the indictment or from a local/county holding facility to a federal facility. What Marcus needs to do is shut his mouth, repeat "I am invoking my right to remain silent and wish to speak to my attorney", and NOT SAY ANYTHING.
Oh, he didn't get to communicate immediately with his co-defendant and make sure they have their stories straight? Yeah, major violation of his rights there...
I am not sure what fantasy-land the author of the original post lives in, but even someone with only a passing familiarity with the US legal system would know some of this. Yes, he will get to speak to his attorney and such access by his counsel must be allowed, but there are strict limits on how long he can be denied such access and he should expect the feds to go right up to that limit but not beyond. As someone who apparently has an appreciation for the grey areas in law and society, I am sure we will hear from Marcus how much he appreciates law enforcement taking advantage of the differences between MUST and SHOULD in the societal protocol docs that we call laws and legal precedent.
I disagree, the limits are minimum standards, not what we should expect.
He was denied access to a lawyer for 48 hours.
He doesn't even know who his codefendant is. How can anyone mount a proper defense (the strongest form of which would be "I don't know this person and I've never communicated with him") without that information?
How can one properly exercise one's habeas corpus rights (that is, challenging the detention) without either of those things?
The problem with your post is the problem with the federal government. They exploit technicalities to punish innocent people and they game the system for their own extraneous reasons.
Disclaimer: I've had several interactions with the FBI, federal prosecutors and senior executives at Homeland Security, that have demonstrated to me that they can be malicious, incompetent and oh so human. There's a two tier system of justice in the US, one that has access to former government officials who work in the private sector, who will do near anything necessary to protect a wealthy and privilege class of people.
But the key advice is Do. Not. Say. Anything. other than "bring my my attorney". Remember that in the interrogation game, the FBI gets to lie, but it is a felony for you. The FBI also refuses to videotape interrogations, gets to write the reports, and has played this game far more than you.
Add that up, and admitting that you like ice cream is dangerous. This can be especially dangerous for smart people, who will tend to start thinking about the questions, trying to guess where they're going, what is important. Don't. The rules are stacked against you, you're missing important information, and your interrogators are (probably) practiced experts at creating little set-piece dramas to manipulate you.
then again this is the same government who says the Constitution doesn't apply 100 miles in from the border (where a significant percentage of the populace lives...)
Incidentally, the rights of the accused are stronger in the US than in any other jurisdiction in the world. He has the unqualified right to remain silent and to a jury trial in which illegally gathered evidence is excluded. He would have neither of those in the UK.
1: http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/confession_and_breaches_o... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_an... 3: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1996/3.html#para45
In the UK, police can use your silence at time of questioning to cast doubt on future exculpatory claims that you make. In the US, the government can never make that argument in court. So in the US, the best course of action is, without qualification, to remain silent until speaking to a lawyer. In the UK, doing that can be presented as evidence of your guilt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_an...
The United States is the only country to take the position that some police misconduct must automatically result in the suppression of physical evidence. The rule applies whether the misconduct is slight or serious, and without regard to the gravity of the crime or the power of the evidence. “Foreign countries have flatly rejected our approach,” said Craig M. Bradley, an expert in comparative criminal law at Indiana University. “In every other country, it’s up to the trial judge to decide whether police misconduct has risen to the level of requiring the exclusion of evidence.” https://mobile.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/us/19exclude.html
On the flip side, UK police are far more constrained in their actions when interviewing suspects than US police are:
@ UK police are not permitted to lie to suspects in interviews
@ Interviews must be recorded from start to finish.
@ No abusive use of plea bargains: we don’t do the “take this plea bargain or risk being locked up for 60 years” thing at all.
I’m sure there are more, but those are the things that spring to mind immediately.
I’m not going to pretend that everything in the UK is sweetness and light regarding our police, but the idea that the US is a haven of civil rights compared to the UK is just completely wrong-headed.
There are further differences. For instance:
* Like most of Europe, the UK doesn't have an exclusionary rule for illegitimately obtained evidence. Unauthorized searches can produce evidence admissible in court.
* Defendants in the UK don't have the same right to avoid self-incrimination that US defendants do.
* Evidence obtained through entrapment can be admissible in UK courts.
* There's precedent in the UK for secret criminal trials (the US has "secret courts", but those courts have no powers to hear criminal cases).
* The UK accused can be held for up to 28 days without charge.
* Terror suspects in the UK can be placed on what is effectively house arrest indefinitely, without criminal charges.
If you discount parallel construction
Non-US citizens arrested in the US will potentially face deportation and permanent expulsion if the crimes are serious enough, like rape or murder. Other than that the police will likely treat you just the same as any American, which is not necessarily great but at least it's equitable.
Now the federal law enforcement departments are more brutal in their techniques. They're usually only involved in serious crimes though.
And extraordinary renditions are illegal kidnappings so I don't think there's any expectation of rights afforded or decency shown in that sort of situation. You're gonna get tortured in Egypt/etc. whether you're an American or not.
Any felony is grounds for deportation and permanent expulsion regardless of how "serious" it might be.