Sioux City murder suspect's statements to be allowed at trial
SIOUX CITY | Statements made to police by a murder suspect on the night of his arrest will be allowed at his upcoming trial.
District Judge Jeffrey Poulson denied a defense motion to suppress, saying that police did not violate Juan Nino-Estrada's Fifth Amendment rights.
Nino-Estrada, 27, of Sioux City, is scheduled to stand trial Tuesday in Woodbury County District Court on two counts of first-degree murder and single counts of attempted murder and willful injury for the Nov. 7 shooting deaths of Michael Delgado, 35, of Sioux City, and Yolanda Valdez, 35, of Orange City, Iowa, at a house in the 500 block of West 27th Street. Nino-Estrada is also charged with shooting Luis Sanchez, of Sioux City. Sanchez survived.
Police have said that an altercation between Nino-Estrada and another man at the house escalated into the shooting.
Defense attorneys had filed the motion to suppress statements Nino-Estrada made shortly after his arrest and subsequent questioning at the hospital, where he was being treated for a gunshot wound, and then at the police station.
At a hearing earlier this month, officers Greg Rose and Josiah Fenceroy testified that they thought they heard Nino-Estrada mumble what sounded like the words "Fifth Amendment," while asking him questions at the hospital. They said Nino-Estrada was not questioned further until he was taken to the police station. There, Det. Mike Simons said he read Nino-Estrada his rights. Nino-Estrada said he understood those rights, Simons testified.
Poulson found that Fenceroy properly stopped questioning Nino-Estrada at the hospital, even though the suspect's words were unclear, and the questioning at the police station was done by two different officers after properly advising Nino-Estrada of his rights.
"Under the totality of the circumstances, the court finds defendant's right to remain silent was scrupulously honored," Poulson said in his ruling.
Poulson also ruled that police were within their rights to ask Nino-Estrada about the location of the gun used in a fatal double shooting without reading him his Miranda rights because finding the gun was a matter of public safety.
If found guilty as charged, Nino-Estrada would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.
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Sioux City murder suspect's statements to be allowed at trial