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Judge won't throw out Olga Franco statement

Last update: May 6, 2008 - 6:29 PM

A statement Olga Franco gave to police hours after the Cottonwood bus crash will not be thrown out of her criminal case, a Redwood County judge ruled Tuesday.

Franco's attorney, Manuel Guerrero, had tried to suppress his client's Feb. 19 interview with authorities, arguing in part that Franco was not told her rights.

Judge David Peterson found that, although Franco was not given a Miranda warning, she was asked basic investigative questions and was not formally under arrest. Their questions, including whether she had a license, whose vehicle she was in and whether she remembered what happened, did not appear to have been coercive, the judge ruled.

The interview "seems much more like preliminary on-the-scene questioning rather than custodial interrogation. A reasonable person in Defendant's position would not have thought they were in custody," Peterson wrote.

The questioning was done through an interpreter because Franco doesn't speak English. Guerrero has questioned whether the interpreting was completely accurate.

The fact that an interpreter was used "lessens any inherent coercion that might attach to direct face-to-face questioning of law enforcement," Peterson wrote.

The next hearing in Franco's case is scheduled for May 15.

PAM LOUWAGIE