OGDEN — Prosecutors urged a judge Thursday to uphold the legality of a police interrogation in which a Pleasant View man confessed to shooting two people in an aborted drug buy.

Caleb Skipps at one point asked for a lawyer during the interrogation, but made incriminating statements before then, and later after again waiving his rights, the Weber County Attorney’s Office said in a document filed in 2nd District Court.

Skipps, 20, is charged with aggravated murder in the Jan. 9, 2020, death of Isaac Gonzalez, 21, of North Ogden, and attempted aggravated murder in the wounding of a second man. The shootings occurred in Ogden.

Skipps’ attorney filed a motion in November urging Judge Camille Neider to throw out the confession, arguing detectives continued to talk to Skipps until he “made several statements against his interest, went for a ride with detectives to locate the firearm and gave detectives the passcode to his phone.”

But prosecutors said Skipps “reinitiated conversations with law enforcement after invoking his Miranda rights, he made a knowing and intelligent waiver of the right to counsel, and his subsequent statements were voluntarily made.”

In the first 16 minutes of the interrogation in the early morning hours of Jan. 10, Skipps denied knowing anything about the shootings and said he had been at home and at a fast-food restaurant the night before.

After Ogden police detectives told him other witnesses had told them Skipps was involved in the shootings, Skipps said, “He tried to rob me. I got in his car to buy something from him, and he tried to rob me. He tried to pull me out of his car, and I got scared. I didn’t know what to do. And at this point, I’d like to have a lawyer present.”

Skipps’ attorney contended that after a break to allow Skipps to take a nap, “no new Miranda warning was given before the bulk of the confession.”

According to the interrogation transcript, Skipps told detectives he had questions. They said they could answer his questions if he would “set that aside,” an apparent reference to the Miranda warning.

Prosecutors said detectives told Skipps if he wanted to speak with the officers again, “that’s up to you” and that they would “go back over the Miranda stuff again.”

“Skipps continued to be the primary driver of the continued discussion,” prosecutors said.

Only after Skipps confirmed he wanted to talk, prosecutors said, “the interview continued to discuss the … claim of self-defense, his activities in disposing of the gun, and the drug transaction and events surrounding the shooting,” prosecutors said.

During the entire interaction, the detectives never “physically or mentally mistreated him,” prosecutors said. “They employed no psychological techniques to trick him or made any false statements to him.”

They added, “By all objective measures, Mr. Skipps made a voluntary decision to engage the detectives in further discussion after he had invoked, and been reminded several times, his right to an attorney and then agreed to waive that right to continue talking with the detectives.”

Neider has scheduled a March 23 hearing on the evidence suppression issue.

Skipps remains held without bail at the Weber County Jail.