The bombing suspects' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, left, who plans to travel to the U.S., and mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, center, at a news conference Thursday in Makhachkala, a city in the Russian republic of Dagestan. European Pressphoto Agency

A federal judge decided to advise Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of his Miranda rights, even though investigators apparently still wanted to question him further under a public-safety exception.

The judge's move, made on Monday in the hospital where Mr. Tsarnaev was recovering, has prompted some Republican lawmakers to press the Justice Department as to why it didn't make a stronger bid to resist the judge's plans.

Those lawmakers say Mr. Tsarnaev's interrogation should have continued without him being advised of his right to remain silent, because they say agents should have had more time to determine if there were other undetected bombs or plotters. After being read his rights, the suspect stopped talking to investigators, officials said.

"There will be more instances like this, and we will need to have a much better understanding about what is appropriate," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R., Mich.) said in an interview Thursday. "We have a long-standing tradition that the judiciary does not interfere with investigations. This sets a very dangerous precedent."

Police guard the entrance to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on April 20, where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being treated. AP

Investigators are invoking the "public safety exception" in their questioning of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev before advising him of his rights. Will using it now make things more difficult for prosecutors later? WSJ's Jason Bellini has "The Short Answer." Image: Associated Press/ Bob Leonard

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Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said Thursday, "The rules of criminal procedure require the court to advise the defendant of his right to silence and his right to counsel during the initial appearance.'' Mr. Boyd said Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler made it clear on Sunday, after the first sealed charges were filed in her court against Mr. Tsarnaev, 19 years old, that the hearing would be held the following day.

Federal rules require that defendants appear before a judge without unnecessary delay—usually defined as within one business day.

Judge Bowler convened the brief, makeshift court hearing in the hospital room about 16 hours after the complaint was filed. Her reading of the Miranda warning came as part of the formal presentation of charges to the suspect, an act that would normally take place in court.

Judge Bowler was the first government official to advise Mr. Tsarnaev of his right to remain silent after his capture Friday night, officials briefed on the matter said.

The judge first told the Justice Department on Saturday that she intended to read Mr. Tsarnaev his rights on Monday, according to people briefed on the discussions. One U.S. official said the judge cited the intense television coverage of the capture as one reason for initiating the criminal prosecution.

Through a court clerk, the judge declined to comment.

Under a 1984 Supreme Court ruling, a public-safety exception allows investigators to question suspects for an unspecified period without giving them a Miranda warning. The exception is designed to give law-enforcement officials time to determine if there are other threats to public safety.

It will ultimately be up to a court to decide which, if any, of the statements Mr. Tsarnaev made before he got the warning could be admissible evidence for the prosecution.

Andrew Arena, the former head of the Detroit office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation when it handled the case of the plane "underwear bomber'' in 2009, said he thought the Boston case was handled properly.

"When you bring the judge into it, that's what's going to happen. They don't work for the Justice Department, they don't work for Capitol Hill, they are going to do what they are legally obligated to do,'' said Mr. Arena. "I think [investigators] got what they were going to get out of him, anyway.''

The legal treatment of Mr. Tsarnaev will revive a debate over how terrorist suspects should be interrogated and treated, a charged topic.

Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who tried to blow up the plane landing in Detroit, was read his Miranda rights shortly after his arrest, setting off a political furor. He initially stopped cooperating with investigators but later resumed.

Mr. Rogers said Justice officials should have pushed back on the judge's plans, citing the unique circumstance that additional bombs could still be in play. He wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder late Wednesday to register his concerns.

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"What I find shocking is that the judiciary proactively inserted itself into this circumstance and the Justice Department so readily acquiesced to the circumstance," he said. "The court doing this proactively, they may have jeopardized our ability to get public-safety information."

Mr. Rogers, a former FBI agent, said because of the severity of the threat and the suspect's poor health, investigators didn't have sufficient time to question him. Among the information investigators were still seeking was whether others were involved in the attacks and whether there were additional explosives hidden somewhere, he said.

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The FBI was aware Judge Bowler was planning to go to the hospital Monday and was "not happy about it," he said. "They believed they needed more time. This is not a good way to stop another bomb from going off."

An FBI spokesman declined to comment.

The revelation about the judge's role came late Wednesday at a briefing before the House Intelligence Committee. One lawmaker in the meeting asked FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce why the FBI didn't raise objections, according to another U.S. official. Mr. Joyce said in essence it wasn't the FBI's role to object to such a determination, the official said.

The answer surprised many of the lawmakers, the official said. "The whole tenor in the room changed," the official said.

Michael McCaul (R., Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a video interview on that the initial interrogation left much unknown. "The level of sophistication of these devices…leads a lot of us to believe there was some sort of training done by others," Mr. McCaul said. "I find it a bit astounding that people right out of the box are saying there's no foreign connection whatsoever, when the fact is the FBI has just begun their investigation."

When Tamerlan Tsarnaev sought his roots in Russia's North Caucasus last year, he arrived in a provincial capital where clan wars had matured into a haven for Islamist jihadists. Paul Sonne takes a closer look at Tamerlan's six-month trip. Photo: AP.

Separately on Thursday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Mr. Tsarnaev told interrogators that he and his brother, Tamerlan, had "spontaneously'' decided during a late-night crime spree last week to travel to Times Square to detonate the remainder of their explosives. But then, Tamerlan, 26, was killed in a firefight with police.

Authorities had previously said the two suspects had planned to go to New York to "party,'' based on statements the suspect made in his hospital bed late Saturday night. The following night, according to officials, he said that the brothers came up with the idea to drive to New York and detonate a half-dozen remaining homemade bombs. On Wednesday, federal counterterrorism officials notified the New York Police Department of Mr. Tsarnaev's statement.

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the brothers had one pressure-cooker bomb in their possession at the time, similar to the two used in the Boston blasts that killed three people and left more than 200 injured. The five remaining explosives were pipe bombs, Mr. Kelly said.

Write to Devlin Barrett at, Siobhan Gorman at and Tamer El-Ghobashy at