State v. Abbott

The principal question in the appeal to this court is whether, where two defendants are jointly indicted for first degree murder and it is disclosed, preceding the trial of the codefendants, that signed confessions by one of them made in the absence of the other will be offered in evidence, which confessions implicate such other, it is prejudicial error as to the latter codefendant for the trial court to grant, over such codefendant’s objection, the state’s motion for a joint trial.

A collateral question is whether, where such joint trial is ordered and a confession is admitted in evidence as…