State v. James

In this aggravated murder and robbery case, the state appeals from a pretrial order suppressing evidence of statements that defendant made to police detectives during a custodial interrogation. The question presented is whether the trial court erred in requiring the state to demonstrate that the police obtained defendant’s statements in compliance with his right to counsel under Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution, such as by first obtaining defendant’s valid waiver of that right before eliciting the challenged statements. 1 For the reasons that follow, we hold that the trial…