Strohmeyer confessions in

After prosecution and defense attorneys ranted and raved over the legality of evidence police gathered against Jeremy Strohmeyer, each side walked away with a victory Tuesday.

The prosecution's win, however, may be bigger.

District Judge Don Chairez ruled Tuesday that Strohmeyer's graphic and detailed confessions to sexually assaulting and killing 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson at a Primm casino will be given to a jury at his April 20 trial.

The decision bolstered what already has been described as an overpowering case. Defense attorney Richard Wright commented wishfully that he had hoped prosecutors would chose not to muddy the legal waters with questionable confessions when they have evidence of Strohmeyer's confessions to classmates and video of him in the casino.

As the sometimes venomous legal arguments ebbed and flowed, following seven days of hearings, Strohmeyer listened attentively but impassionately.

Even the decisions failed to elicit much reaction from the teenager.

The hearings resulted from defense motions seeking to have Strohmeyer's three confessions to police ruled legally inadmissible because of the 19-year-old defendant's claim that detectives refused his request for a lawyer. Testimony also showed clearly that a family-hired attorney had been kept away from the teenager.

While Chairez wasn't thrilled with the 11-hour game of hide-the-defendant by Long Beach, Calif., police, he ruled the decision whether to talk with a lawyer or to confess or not rested only with Strohmeyer -- not his parents and not the lawyer.

The defense victory came when Chairez ruled that information including photos, pictures and records of Internet chat room conversations in Strohmeyer's computer will be excluded from the trial.

The judge concluded that police in Long Beach could not justify seizing the computer as they searched Strohmeyer's room in his parent's home for evidence linking him to Iverson's slaying.

Chairez said that Strohmeyer had "some expectation of privacy" about the information in the computer and police needed to specify what they were looking for and why they needed it.

Although the information recovered over two months by police computer experts remains sealed by court order, Deputy District Attorney Bill Koot argued in court that the "chat room dialogue goes right to the heart of this case."

"It goes to premeditation and it explains why he did what he did."

Defense attorney Richard Wright told the judge that the decision about the computer was a "no brainer" because police didn't even mention it in an affidavit justifying the search warrant, although the warrant itself did authorized the seizing of the computer.

Koot had defended the search warrant, saying the California judge who signed it was faced with "overwhelming evidence Strohmeyer committed the crimes of murder and sexual deviancy" and concluded that the seizure -- which eventually bore fruit -- was necessary.

California defense attorney Leslie Abramson sniped that Koot was taking a "mad dog approach" and lectured him that "you can't justify a search warrant by what you find."

Iverson was sexually assaulted and strangled in a women's restroom at the Primm Valley hotel-casino on May 25. Her body was left propped on a toilet by a body-pierced man whose picture was captured on a surveillance video.

After the video was broadcast on television news shows, Strohmeyer was named by friends in Long Beach as the man in the pictures. In confessions to friends and then police, the high school honor student confirmed that he was responsible for the slaying.

In challenging the police confessions -- two of which were tape recorded -- Abramson charged that detectives took advantage of Strohmeyer's youthful innocence to elicit incriminating statements although he had asked for a lawyer just after his arrest.

Although police denied in sometimes somewhat contradictory testimony that an attorney was ever requested, Abramson argued to the judge that the "heart of the matter is: who do you believe?"

In her view, Long Beach Police Sgt. Walter Turley engaged in an "elaborate, clumsy and obvious lie to get around the fact that he denied Mr. Strohmeyer his Fifth Amendment right to counsel."

But District Attorney Stewart Bell countered to Chairez that Strohmeyer's claim is "an absolutely uncorroborated story of an accused child sexual assaulter and capital murderer."

He asked the judge, "Can the court think of anyone with greater motive to lie?"

Bell added that Strohmeyer never complained of being denied an attorney to medical staff at Long Beach Community Medical Center, where he was taken after his arrest to have his stomach pumped for a handful of Dexadrine pills he took in an ill-fated suicide attempt.

"The evidence is that Jeremy Strohmeyer talked and he could have kept quiet," Bell said.

The prosecutor discounted Abramson's claim that the pills, washed down with whiskey and beer, had rendered the defendant incapable of making a knowing decision whether to talk to police.

"The only evidence his mind was overcome with drugs is his own say-so ... the product of a man fighting for his very life," Bell said.

In the end, Chairez concluded he couldn't accept Strohmeyer's story that he had invoked his right to an attorney and then stated on tape later that he had been told of his Miranda rights and waived them.

Although Chairez admitted he found the conduct of Long Beach police "slightly undesirable" in keeping Strohmeyer away from his attorney and not allowing him access to a telephone for hours, he decided it "doesn't rise to the level of unconstitutionality."

The judge rejected Abramson's contention that police were not truthful about how they elicited the confessions from Strohmeyer.

"It's almost impossible to believe two officers would risk their careers by lying," he said.

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