State v. Bentley

Defendant assigns as error the court’s ruling that his out-of-court statements to police officers at the police station were voluntarily made.

The record discloses that when the State attempted to introduce a standard police waiver form signed by the defendant acknowledging that he had been properly advised of his constitutional rights before interrogation, objection was made by defendant’s counsel. Counsel then requested that the voluntariness of defendant’s statements be determined on voir dire. The trial judge excused the jury and heard evidence bearing directly on the question of whether…