A Flathead County District Court judge has denied a motion to suppress evidence in a rape case two weeks after the attorney for the suspect argued his client’s rights were violated during a jailhouse interview.
Public Defender Brent Getty filed a motion in December stating that a Flathead County sheriff’s deputy did not properly give 27-year-old Eric Cordova his Miranda rights after he was arrested for allegedly raping a woman in Whitefish.
Attorneys from both sides met on Jan. 8 at a hearing on the matter before Judge Robert Allison. During the hearing, prosecutors said no incriminating statements were made in the five minutes before the deputy read Cordova his rights. Deputy Colten O’Connell testified that there was a concern that Cordova, who was originally from Los Angeles and came to the valley to play baseball for the now-defunct Glacier Outlaws, might not understand English.
“In this case, Deputy O’Connell was merely building a rapport with the defendant and nothing he asked (prior to giving Cordova his Miranda rights) solicited an incriminating response,” Prosecutor Alison Howard said. “This was basically two or three minutes of general conversation to establish if Cordova understood English.”
Getty argued that the deputy should have read Cordova his rights immediately.
In his decision handed down on Jan. 13, Allison denied the motion to suppress the evidence, writing that O’Connell’s questions did not result in Cordova giving incriminating statements.
Cordova was immediately dismissed from the Glacier Outlaws following his arrest in May 2015. A few weeks later, the team folded amid the collapse of the independent baseball league.
Cordova is scheduled to stand trial next month.