CBS/AP/ April 22, 2013, 8:49 AM

Boston bombing suspect awake, answering questions

AP Photo/Bob Leonard
Last Updated 8:49 a.m. ET

BOSTON The surviving Boston bombing suspect is conscious and responding in writing to authorities, CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports. Officials did not reveal further details on what they are asking, or what his responses are.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was in serious condition Sunday, two days after being pulled bloody and wounded from a tarp-covered boat in a Watertown backyard. The capture came at the end of a tense day-long manhunt that began with his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, dying in a gun battle with police.

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Boston bombing suspect communicating with investigators

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Bombing investigators focus questions on public safety

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remains hospitalized under heavy guard. He is being treated at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where 11 victims of the bombing were still hospitalized.

Officials say Tsarnaev is recuperating from a bullet wound in the leg and in the neck, rendering him unable to speak. They could not comment on whether or not the neck wound was self-inflicted.

Federal prosecutors are working on bringing charges but there was no immediate word on when Tsarnaev might be charged and what those charges would be. The twin bombings killed three people and wounded more than 180.

U.S. officials said the elite interrogation team would question Tsarnaev, a Massachusetts college student, without reading him his Miranda rights, which guarantees the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney.

Senior correspondent John Miller told "CBS This Morning" that investigators are focused at the moment on the "public safety exceptions" -- questioning the suspect on matters of immediate threats.

"It's basically, 'Where did you make the bombs? Are there any more explosives out there? Any more cells? Are there any more people?'" said Miller.

"And while I'm told he's being cooperative, I'm also getting the sense -- and I want to be careful of too many specifics here -- that he's not saying there's a whole second wave of plots or plotters here. Still there are places where there may be explosives and other things to find, it sounds like."

But Miller stressed that is it is still early in the investigation, and the process of questioning Tsarnaev -- who can only respond by writing - is slow. "Things could develop or change," Miller said.

American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero said the legal exception applies only when there is a continued threat to public safety and is "not an open-ended exception" to the Miranda rule.

The federal public defender's office in Massachusetts said it has agreed to represent Tsarnaev once he is charged. Miriam Conrad, public defender for Massachusetts, said he should have a lawyer appointed as soon as possible because there are "serious issues regarding possible interrogation."

In a statement, several GOP lawmakers - Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., and Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H. - called the decision not to immediately Mirandize Tsarnaev "sound and in our national security interests." However, they expressed concern that "exclusively relying on the public safety exception to Miranda could very well be a national security mistake. It could severely limit our ability to gather critical information about future attacks from this suspect."

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Complete coverage: Boston Marathon bombings

Investigators believe that two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings were likely planning other attacks, based on the cache of weapons uncovered, the city's police commissioner, Ed Davis, told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. He said authorities found an arsenal of homemade explosives after Friday's gun battle between police and the two suspects.

"We have reason to believe, based upon the evidence that was found at that scene -- the explosions, the explosive ordnance that was unexploded and the firepower that they had -- that they were going to attack other individuals," Davis said. "That's my belief at this point."

The scene of the gun battle was loaded with unexploded bombs, and authorities had to alert arriving officers to them and clear the scene, Davis said. One improvised explosive device was found in the Mercedes which the brothers are accused of carjacking, he said.

"This was as dangerous as it gets in urban policing," Davis said.

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Mass Gov: Not sure Boston will ever be "quite the same".

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Sunday that surveillance video from Monday's Boston Marathon attack shows Dzhokhar Tsarnaev dropping his backpack and calmly walking away from it before the bomb inside it exploded.

Patrick also said that he has no idea what motivated the suspects. Speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," Patrick said it's hard to imagine why someone would deliberately harm "innocent men, women and children in the way that these two fellows did."

Patrick also said law enforcers believe the immediate threat ended when police killed one suspect and captured the other.

President Barack Obama said there are many unanswered questions about the bombing, including whether the Tsarnaev brothers - ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who had been in the U.S. for about a decade and lived in the Boston area - had help from others. The president urged people not to rush judgment about their motivations.

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Sunday services memorialize Boston bombing victims

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Passage: 4 lives lost in Boston

On Sunday, family and friends attended a wake at a funeral home in Medford, Massachusetts, for Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant worker, who was one one of the three people killed in the marathon bombing. A private funeral is scheduled for Monday.

Eight-year-old Martin Richard of Boston's Dorchester neighborhood and 23-year-old Lu Lingzi, a Boston University graduate student from China, also died in the attacks. BU is holding a memorial service for Lu on Monday.

On Sunday, a Boston synagogue opened its doors to worshipers from Trinity Church, which sits in the shadow of the Marathon finish line and remains closed. An interfaith service will also be held Sunday near the finish line where people set up a make-shift memorial as police cleared away debris from the bombing. The Rev. Nancy Taylor of the Old South Church said worshipers will be showing solidarity with the bombing victims.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley was offering a Mass to pray for those killed and injured in the attack and manhunt for the suspects. The service will also honor police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and doctors who saved lives.


The all-day manhunt Friday brought the Boston area to a near standstill and put people on edge across the metropolitan area.

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