State v. Pressel

Defendant was convicted of the crime of assault with intent to kill, and appeals from the resulting judgment. The sole assignment of error relates to the admission into evidence of certain statements made by the defendant which he claims were coerced.

A criminal trial is a search for the truth consistent with proper attention to the rights of the individual. Testimonial reliability is the basic concept underlying the admissibility of evidence in a trial. It is urged that the circumstances surrounding the taking of defendant’s statements in this case raised a presumption of eoercivenéss so…