Banks v. State

• Decision Date: 28 May 1888
• Citation: Banks v. State, 84 Ala. 430, 4 So. 382 (Ala. 1888)
• Parties: BANKS v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

4 So. 382

84 Ala. 430

BANKS v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

May 28, 1888

Appeal from circuit court, Calhoun county; LEROY F. BOX, Judge.

The appellant, Banks, was indicted, tried, and convicted for burglary. The only evidence against him, as shown by the bill of exceptions, was his own confessions.

Brothers, Willett & Willett, for appellant.

T N. McClellan, Atty. Gen., for the State.

CLOPTON J.

In respect to the admissibility in evidence of the confessions of a person charged with a crime, the following rules have been repeatedly declared, and are well established, by our decisions: Confessions are prima facie inadmissible and it must be satisfactorily shown to the court that they are voluntary-were made when the mind of the accused was free from the influence of hope or fear-before they can be received in evidence. Any menace, or hope excited by encouragement that the prisoner would be more favorably dealt with if he confesses, is sufficient to exclude them. When a confession has been obtained by appliances of hope or fear, a subsequent confession, made within a reasonable time thereafter, should be excluded, unless it is clearly shown that all undue influence had been fully withdrawn, or explained away, and that the mind of the accused was as free therefrom as if no effort had been made to extort a confession. And, though a confession may be obtained by the influence of threats or promises, if they disclosed extraneous facts, which show their truth and tend to prove the commission of the crime, so much of the confession as...