State v. Allen

Under Savinskiy, “the Article I, section 11, right to counsel on pending charges does not guarantee that the State will provide notice to a defendant’s attorney before questioning the Defendant about new, uncharged and ongoing criminal conduct.”

Defendant was in custody and offered money to a fellow inmate to murder a witness in his upcoming murder trial. The inmate wore a wire to record a conversation with Defendant and Defendant was subsequently charged with two counts of aggravated murder and one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder. The trial court denied Defendant’s motion to suppress and Defendant assigned error to that denial. Defendant argued that “his pending murder charges were sufficiently related to the new investigation to require suppression of the evidence in both cases.” The State responded that “the right to counsel ha[d] not yet attached to the new and ongoing crimes—that is, the charges that led to the convictions in this case.” The Court explained that “Defendant engaged in new criminal activity when he solicited his fellow inmate to murder a witness in his pending murder trial.” Under Savinskiy, “the Article I, section 11, right to counsel on pending charges does not guarantee that the state will provide notice to a defendant’s attorney before questioning the defendant about new, uncharged and ongoing criminal conduct.” Therefore, the court concluded that the trial court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion to suppress. Convictions for attempted aggravated murder reversed; remanded for resentencing; otherwise affirmed.