Adams v. State
| Decision Date | 13 August 1907 |
| Citation | 58 S.E. 822,129 Ga. 248 |
| Parties | ADAMS et al. v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
Where the body of a man apparently murdered was found by the roadside, and two persons were arrested and placed in jail charged with the murder, and were subsequently taken thence in custody before the coroner's jury summoned to hold an inquest on the body, and, without being informed that they were not compelled to testify, were sworn and examined as witnesses, not on their motion, but on that of the coroner or the jury, in regard to the homicide and their connection with it, on a subsequent trial under an indictment charging them with murder, confessions or inculpatory statements elicited on their examination before the coroner's jury were not admissible against them.
[Ed Note.-For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 14, Criminal Law, § 1185.]
Error from Superior Court, Haralson County; Price Edwards, Judge.
B. G Adams and Hillard Lee were convicted of murder, and bring error. Reversed.
Griffith & Matthews, for plaintiffs in error.
W. K Fielder, Sol. Gen., and Jno. C. Hart, Atty. Gen., for the State.
B. G Adams and Hillard Lee were jointly indicted for the murder of Reece Jones. They were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. They made a motion for a new trial, which was overruled, and they excepted. The motion contained, besides the general grounds, numerous others which were added by amendment. Most of these require no discussion further than to say that they are without merit. As to others, if there were some slight inaccuracies of expression in detached portions of the charge, when taken in connection with the entire charge, they will scarcely require a new trial. In one part of the charge the presiding judge used the expression: "Yet if the evidence was not strong enough to exclude every reasonable hypothesis of murder or the claim of murder," etc. In a case depending upon circumstantial evidence it is every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused which must be excluded, not "every reasonable hypothesis of murder or the claim of murder." Such an inadvertence in expression will doubtless not occur again.
One ground of the motion for a new trial requires a reversal. It appears that the body of the deceased was found beside the public road, and evidence of a circumstantial character was introduced to show that he was killed by the defendant. After the body was found, an inquest was held. The defendants had been arrested and placed in jail, charged with the murder of the deceased. They were taken from jail in custody of the sheriff and sworn and examined as witnesses before the coroner's jury. They were not informed that they were not compelled to testify, and were examined after all parties had been excluded from the room where the inquest was being held. On their trial in the superior court under the indictment, two members of the coroner's jury were allowed, over objection, to testify to what the defendants had sworn as witnesses at the inquest, including certain inculpatory statements. The ruling just stated was erroneous. Pen. Code 1895, § 1006, declares that: "To make a confession admissible, it must have been made voluntarily, without being induced by another, by the slightest hope of benefit or remotest fear of injury." Among the powers of a coroner's jury is that of declaring whether the person upon whose body the inquest is held came to his death by murder; and, if so, who were the principals and who were the accessories. Pen. Code 1895, § 1262. If the inquest discloses facts which lead or may lead to the prosecution of any person for the homicide, the coroner shall issue a warrant for the arrest of the person suspected of the homicide, returnable as other warrants. Pen. Code 1895, § 1264. Pen. Code 1895, § 1010. In a court of inquiry the defendant is permitted to make his own statement of the transaction, not under oath, if he desires so to do. Pen. Code 1895, § 910. The spirit of the law is that one accused of crime shall not be required to be put under oath, and thus to be placed in the dilemma of either being required to testify as a witness against himself, or being subject to the penalties of false swearing. His right to speak, not under oath, is a statutory privilege, and it is not lawful to require him to be sworn as a witness against himself. Where a coroner's jury has been summoned to hold an inquest over the body of a deceased person who appears to have been murdered, and another has been arrested and is held in custody, accused of the crime, he is not formally upon trial, but substantially he is so, and the crime for which he has been arrested, as well as his connection with it, is the subject of investigation. For the coroner, or other officer representing the state to bring him forward as a witness under such circumstances, require him to be sworn, and demand of him under oath to testify as to his own guilt or innocence, is in violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the statute. If he should decline to be sworn at all, or to answer questions, he must know that the effect would be disastrous to him. It is not a case where one may lawfully be called as a witness generally, but where, if certain questions are put to him, he may claim his privilege. It is a case where the accused ought not to be sworn at all. It may be that there is nothing in the fact of an arrest alone which will make a voluntary confession of a party under arrest inadmissible; or, if one voluntarily makes a confession or inculpatory statement before a magistrate, this alone may not render it inadmissible; or, as suggested above, where it is lawful to swear a person as a witness, so that the general examination of him is proper, but if the witness is asked certain questions he may claim his privilege, the administration of an oath may not alone render a confession voluntarily made inadmissible on a subsequent trial. But we think there can be no doubt that, where it is unlawful to require the accused to be sworn as a witness, to do so, and to draw out of him, by questions, confessions, or inculpatory statements under oath is improper, and such statements are not admissible against him, if he is subsequently tried for the offense involved.
In Cicero v. State, 54 Ga. 156, it was said: "A magistrate has no right to examine a defendant for the purpose of obtaining from him contradictory statements." Before a confession is admissible in evidence, it must appear prima facie that it was freely and voluntarily made. If the contrary appears, it is inadmissible. If the evidence for the state makes out a prima facie case for the admission of such a confession, the court is not bound, before admitting it, to hear evidence on behalf of the accused, tending to show coercion or improper inducement in its procurement. If the evidence for the state shows the confession to be admissible it will be admitted. If the defendant desires to introduce evidence to show that there was improper inducement which caused the confession to be made, he can do so, and it will then be for the jury to determine, under all the evidence, whether or not the confession was free and voluntary. Irby v. State, 95 Ga. 467, 20 S.E. 218; Dawson v. State, 59 Ga. 333; Smith v. State, 88 Ga. 627, 15 S.E. 675. As to inculpatory statements, or even statements seeking to place the crime upon another, see Fuller v. State, 109 Ga. 809, 35 S.E. 298. In Inman v. State, 72 Ga. 269, no question was raised as to the admissibility of evidence, but exception was taken to the charge of the court as to the credit to be given to sworn statements of a person as a witness before a coroner's jury, when subsequently introduced in evidence (apparently without objection) on his trial for murder. Counsel for the state in the present case relied on the case of Woolfolk v. State, 81 Ga. 551 (6), 562, 8 S.E. 724. It will be observed that there the court dealt with two matters together: First, that testimony was allowed in relation to the coroner's requiring the defendant, during the progress of the inquest, to remove his clothing, whereby...
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