Cardman v. Colorado
Annotate this CaseDetective Paul Patton coerced Matthew Cardman into making a confession, and the prosecution then used that confession as evidence against Cardman to convict him of multiple sex offenses. Defense counsel filed a pretrial motion to suppress Cardman’s statements but neglected to challenge the voluntariness of those statements. Because counsel neglected to do so, the trial court did not rule on it, and a division of the court of appeals declined to review its merits, concluding that Cardman waived it by failing to raise it in the trial court. The Colorado Supreme Court disagreed with the appellate court and reversed: the trial court erred in admitting Cardman’s statements at trial and that the error rose to the level of plain error requiring reversal. Accordingly, the case was remanded to the court of appeals with instructions to return the case to the trial court for a new trial.
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