Unlike Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Suspected British Beheaders of Soldier Unlikely To Be Questioned at Hospital
On Wednesday, a British soldier was murdered on a street in London. Both of the suspects, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, were shot and arrested at the scene and have been taken to separate hospitals.
After the Boston Marathon bombing the surviving suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was also injured and taken to hospital.
Unlike Tsarnaev, Adebolajo and Adebowale are unlikely to be questioned by police while they are in hospital. Ben Moshinsky and Erik Larson of Bloomberg explain:
Unlike in the U.S., Britain's police code of conduct prohibits officers from interviewing suspects about offenses anywhere other than a police station or another authorized place of detention, unless a delay could harm others or lead to a loss of evidence."
Sometimes we have clients interviewed in hospital and we could argue that the evidence is inadmissible," Ruth Hamann, a lawyer at law firm Hodge, Jones & Allan LLP in London, said in a telephone interview. "The police would probably be cautious about asking questions while the suspects are in hospital. It's a gray area."
Earlier this month Jacob Sullum wrote on the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and why it was not necessary for the FBI to invoke a public safety exception to the Miranda rule so that he could be questioned in hospital about the whereabouts of potential unexploded bombs.