The 19-year-old Boston bombing suspect admitted to his role in the deadly plot that killed three and left more than 260 wounded before he was read his Miranda rights, according to a "senior law enforcement official."
The Boston Globe reports that authorities are not worried about being able to enter Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's confession as evidence of his guilt "because they have a strong witness: the man who was abducted by the Tsarnaev brothers last Thursday night."
For more on why authorities aren't sweating whether the confession gets thrown out, read the rest of the Globe's story.
The Obama administration's decision to interrogate Tsarnaev without first giving him a Miranda warning has drawn scorn from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union. The administration cited a "public safety exception" as the reason for doing so. Tsarnaev was eventually read his rights after initial interrogations.
"Every criminal defendant is entitled to be read Miranda rights," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement. "The public safety exception should be read narrowly. It applies only when there is a continued threat to public safety and is not an open-ended exception to the Miranda rule."
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Tsarnaev should not have been read his Miranda rights and should have been declared an enemy combatant.
"This idea that the only way we can question him about national security matters is to go through his lawyer, turns [it] over to the terrorist and their lawyer controlling information to protect us all," Graham said Monday on Fox News. "That’s crazy. That is absolutely crazy. This man should be held and questioned under the law of war."
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