Suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have been illegally questioned by FBI agents after he was apprehended in 2013. His defense lawyers argue that the agents continued to question him even after he asked for an attorney multiple times as he lay in a Boston-area hospital recovering from wounds received during a shootout with law enforcement officers. Tsarnaev was heavily drugged after surgery, was in severe pain and was unable to talk. He wrote his responses to questions and, allegedly, wrote the word "lawyer" ten times and circled it. For more than 24 hours, the agents continued to question him without an attorney.

In the immediate aftermath of his arrest, law enforcement officials may have been legally permitted to question Tsarnaev even when he did not have an attorney present and without informing him of his rights. In rare scenarios, such as the Boston Marathon bombing case, law enforcement officers may be given special powers when another terrorist act or other violent crime may be imminent. However, according to a recent story in the Los Angeles Times, the agents continued to question the suspect without a defense attorney present even after the threat of another bombing or other terrorist attack was ruled out. If this proves to be true, much of the information he gave to the agents during his time at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center may be suppressed.

The case may shed light on the concerns that many defense attorneys and civil rights advocates have for the "public safety exception" which gives law enforcement officials extraordinary power. If law enforcement officials deem a public safety issue is at stake, they do not need to read a suspect their MIranda warnings. This brings up troubling questions about civil liberties and may lead to an abuse of the special provision.