The court of appeals affirmed a district court judgment. The court held that a defendant did not unequivocally invoke his right to self-representation where he told the trial court that he would be prepared to proceed without counsel while he was expressing frustration with continued delay of his trial date. The court held further that a murder victim’s statements to an investigator, a paramedic, and an emergency room physician and nurse in the immediate aftermath of her attack were admissible under hearsay exceptions for spontaneous utterances or statements made for the purpose of diagnosis, respectively.
Dwayne Woods was charged with two counts of aggravated murder in the first degree, one count of attempted murder in the first degree, and one count of attempting to elude a police vehicle. The charges arose out of Woods’s assaults on three women in a trailer home, which resulted in the deaths of two of the victims.
