Commonwealth v. Watkins

The defendant was indicted for murder in the first degree, armed robbery, and kidnapping. Before trial, the defendant moved to suppress, inter alla, 1 certain incriminatory statements made by him to Massachusetts police officers while in custody in Louisville, Kentucky. After a pretrial hearing, the trial judge, in a statement from the bench, denied the defendant’s motion. However, during the trial the judge, on his own motion, conducted another hearing on the admissibility of the defendant’s statements and excluded certain portions thereof from evidence. The remaining statements were…