State v. Siler

COPELAND, Justice.

Defendant assigns as error the court’s failure to suppress two inculpatory statements made by him during in-custody interrogation in the absence of counsel and the subsequent admission of these statements into evidence over objection. Defendant claims there was no effective waiver of his constitutional right to counsel prior to interrogation.

Upon defendant’s motions to suppress, two pre-trial hearings were held to consider the admissibility of these confessions. Judge Edwin S. Preston, Jr. presided at both the 17 February 1976 and the 18 May 1976 hearings.

The State’s…