He withdrew the confession. Probably at the behest of his lawyer. Pretty common in homicide cases.
CC
Thanks for the explanations. Difficult to keep updated given everything that goes on in the world today.
I am so grateful to FreeRepublic!
I'm not a trained (via a law school,) lawyer, but I would say I'm a upper class Jail-House Lawyer, been to my state Supreme Court writing legal brief's more than a half dozen times.
In my humble opinion, if a lawyer, who was trained by a legal school, and who has passed a "STATE-BAR-EXAMINATION," would be incompetent.
The very short answer that one and all will help you to understand why a lawyer would do this (Change the plea of Guilty to "NOT-GUILTY,") is I give you the "O. J. Simpson case.".
Although in my humble opinion O. J. Simpson was guilty as HELL, the prosecution "TEAM," FUBAR{ED} that case so bad, is why he walked. The trial spanned eight months, from January 24 to October 3, 1995.
In short, the lawyer(s) are looking for a "PLEA-DEAL," in this case, my thought is a "take the DEATH PENALTY," off the table, go for "Life {time prison,} Without Parole," and maybe a television in his cell, or some other very minor requests. (Examples of minor request{s}) say the prison that their looking to keep him in, only allows say one or two hours a day to be out of his cell, expand that by one hour, etc.
Not to mention, theirs always a chance maybe someone in law enforcement (i.e., the legal system, cops, prosecutors, jail-house guards, etc.,) violated his rights, etc., etc. His lawyers have the right to presume someone did, they just have to find that proof, present this proof to the court(s) and hope the judge / jury etc., agrees. Then don't forget the "AUTOMATIC-APPEALS," that some / most states have in DEATH PENALTY cases. Then theirs the REACH FOR THE SKY, Appeal to the United States Supreme Court.
In my best [actor] Al Pacino voice WERE JUST GETTING STARTED MOTHER "F-ERS."