President Obama has decided the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings will be tried in federal courts, and not as an enemy combatant, as many congressional Republicans advocate.
"We will prosecute this terrorist through our civilian system of justice. Under U.S. law, United States citizens cannot be tried in military commissions," White House spokesperson Jay Carney said in today's press briefing.
Civil rights proponents were worried Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would be tried in a military court, which would have meant the evidence and the trial itself would have taken place behind closed doors, without any guarantees of constitutional freedoms or legal rights for the defendant. Tsarnaev is an American citizen, but if he had been designated an enemy combatant, the military and the federal government could have held him indefinitely without trial or charges, much as the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been held for over a decade.
Despite the civil liberties repercussions, prominent Republicans called for the enemy combatant designation.
"I think we should stay with enemy combatant until we find out for sure whether or not there was a link to foreign terrorist organizations. I think we ought to keep that option open until we find out whether or not there was a connection to terrorist organizations," Republican Senator Dan Coats of Indiana said over the weekend.
"I urge this administration to do the right thing and deem this suspect as an enemy combatant so that we get as much intelligence as legally possible before the suspect is mirandized," read a statement from Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.
After the decision was announced today, more Republican expressed their dismay.
"I strongly disagree with the Obama Administration's decision to rule out enemy combatant status for the suspect at this time. #Boston," tweeted Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Currently, there is no known connection with any foreign groups or governments to the Marathon bombings or the subsequent spree of violence allegedly committed by Tsarnaev and his brother, which played heavily into the Obama administration's decision. In fact, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California asserted it would have been illegal to designate Tsarnaev an enemy combatant.
"I do not believe under the military commission law that he is eligible for that," Feinstein said. "It would be unconstitutional to do that."