Wake District Attorney Colon Willoughby now knows what Derril Willard told his lawyer about the unsolved arsenic poisoning death of Eric Miller, but he is not sure whether a jury will ever hear it.

Last month, Raleigh lawyer Rick Gammon handed over a paragraph to Willoughby that described what Willard said before he committed suicide in January 2001. The state Supreme Court indicated that Willard's statements implicate someone else in Miller's December 2000 death and ordered Gammon to reveal what was said to Willoughby.

No arrest has been made in the case, but lawyers and legal experts already are debating -- if Miller's killer is ever brought to trial -- whether the statement will be admissible as evidence.

"I know what the evidence is, and I'm not sure I have a definitive answer," said Willoughby, who waged a two-year legal battle to learn what Willard said.

Police say Willard was having an affair with Miller's wife, Ann. Both Ann Miller and Willard had access to an arsenic compound at GlaxoSmithKline, the drug company where they worked in Research Triangle Park.

Ann Miller's attorneys said she is preparing for the possibility she might be arrested in the case.

If an arrest is made and Willoughby tries to introduce Willard's words, Gammon will likely be called to testify. If that happens, it could lead to another legal battle -- one of many that have marked this case so far.

"If the state tries to introduce what was turned over, they would try to do it through Rick," said Gammon's attorney, Joseph Zeszotarski of Raleigh. "It's going to be an interesting issue if it ever comes to that."

But naysayers insist that allowing the 12 lines of Willard's words to come in as evidence would violate a defendant's constitutional right to confront his or her accuser. "It can't come in," said Karl Knudsen, a Raleigh criminal defense lawyer. "If it does come in, it's error."

They point to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down an assault conviction in Washington state because a jury heard a taped statement made by the defendant's wife, who wasn't allowed to testify at trial. The court ruled that the jury shouldn't have heard the statement because the defendant couldn't question his wife about what she said.

In the court's opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia cites Sir Walter Raleigh's demands to face his accuser in his 1603 treason trial as one of the many historical precedents for the rights under the Sixth Amendment. Some experts say the opinion signals that judges should take a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights more seriously than before.

Others say the recent Supreme Court ruling, Crawford v. Washington, has no bearing on the Eric Miller case. In the Washington case, the defendant's wife could have foreseen that her statement to police might have been used in court. That was not the case with Willard, who sought advice from Gammon and thought their conversation was confidential, they say.

Besides, they say, this is all speculation because very few know what is in the statement. "The only folks who are in a position to have an educated guess are the handful of folks who have seen it," said Superior Court Judge Tony Brannon of Durham, who teaches other judges about evidence.

Willoughby said, "Most wise and responsible trial lawyers would want to know what the evidence is before they predicted the admissibility."

Loophole of hearsay

Every person accused of a crime has a constitutional right "to be confronted with the witnesses against him."

However, over the years, some exceptions have been made so jurors can hear out-of-court statements, or hearsay, without the defendant having a chance to question who made the statement.

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