EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Attorneys for a 24-year-old hotel clerk accused of killing her newborn son argued Friday that jurors in her new murder trial should not hear a conversation with her sister videotaped at the Springfield Police Department shortly after her December 2010 confession to smothering a newborn son.
The Eugene Register-Guard reports (http://bit.ly/HINU6u ) defense attorneys for Angelica Swartout say a taped conversation should be off limits to jurors because Swartout began it by repeatedly telling a police officer she did not wish to speak to her sister.
Her attorney says those protestations amounted to invoking her right to remain silent.
Swartout’s first murder trial ended in a mistrial Feb. 9, after jurors deadlocked without a verdict after four days of deliberation. A new trial is set to begin April 30.
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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com
