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Show Appeals Court Rules On Sterger Motions The Utah Court of Appeals has issued a decision on an interlocutory interlocu-tory appeal from the Sixth District Court's Jan. 4, 1990 denial in Panguitch Pan-guitch of two motions to suppress evidence in the case of a California man charged with second degree automobile au-tomobile homicide in the July 23, 1989 death of a young woman on the Burr Trail. Michael Allen Sterger, 30, Cypress, Cy-press, Calif., was charged in the death of Michelle Eckroth, 26, Huntington Beach, Calif., who died from injuries suffered when she was ejected from the vehicle Sterger was opcraung. The evidence which the Sixth District court refused to suppress consisted of controlled substances and drug paraphernalia obtained in a search of Sterger's vehicle and a results re-sults of tests from a sample of the his blood obtained following the accident, Sterger's attorney, Phillip Foremaster, St. George, had appealed ap-pealed the decision of Judge Don. V. Tibbs to the Utah Court of Appeals. Ap-peals. In its decision filed March 6, the Court of Appeals affirmed that Judge Don V. Tibbs had ruled correctly cor-rectly in denying a motion by Sterger's attorney Phillip Foremaster Foremas-ter of St George requesting suppression suppres-sion of the evidence discovered in the county's search of Sterger's vehicle. ve-hicle. On the second point of appeal, however, the appeals court refused to rule and sent the issue of suppression sup-pression of the blood test results back to the Sixth District Court for an examination of voluntariness. The appeals court determined that the trial court failed to make adequate ade-quate findings of fact concerning the issue of voluntary consent to the blood test Its decision pointed out that consent must be "unequivocal and specific" and "freely and intelligently intelli-gently given"; that consent be"given without duress or coercion'; coer-cion'; and that convincing evidence be given that constitutional rights were waived. Sterger's trial, which had been set for Feb. 8, 1990 has continued to be delayed because of the appeal process. |