Bishop v. State
| Decision Date | 18 April 1910 |
| Docket Number | 14271 |
| Citation | 96 Miss. 846,52 So. 21 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | GEORGE T. BISHOP v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI |
FROM the circuit court of Sunflower county, HON. JAMES M. CASHIN Judge.
Bishop appellant, was indicted for the murder of one Hutchison, was convicted of murder, and sentenced to suffer death, and appealed to the supreme court.
The deceased was shot while sitting in his house, the bullet being fired through the window in the day time by some one from the outside of the house. Suspicion pointing to the appellant, he was arrested, and while in the custody of a deputy sheriff, Riddle, he is alleged to have confessed to committing the homicide. His conviction rested entirely upon circumstantial evidence and the alleged confession. The opinion of the court further states the facts.
Reversed.
W. D Watts, for appellant.
The state's witness, Riddle, a deputy sheriff in charge of the prisoner, exercised unwarranted zeal in drawing the alleged confession from the prisoner, taking him to a room upstairs in the depot; asking him where he had been, and when appellant began to give an account of his movements, Riddle interrupted him and said that what had been stated would leave no doubt of his guilt. Riddle said in his testimony "I told accused I was sorry for him. " Now, viewing this testimony as a whole, one could arrive at no other conclusion than that the witness, Riddle, was hostile to appellant. Again, Riddle testified that he made no threats or promises, and that the confession was free and voluntary, but, he says, some one present might have made a promise or threat.
If it appears that the prisoner has not been left wholly free, and did not consider himself to be so, in what he was called upon to say, or did not feel himself at liberty wholly to decline any explanation or declaration whatever, the examination is not held to have been voluntary. 1 Greenleaf Ev. § 225.
In the face of the testimony in this case, does it not seem more like the "sweat-box process" than a free, deliberate, and voluntary confession?
Chief Justice Fuller, in delivering the opinion of the court in the case of Wilson v. The United States, 162 U.S. 621, said: "In short, the true test of admissibility is that the confession is made freely, voluntarily, and without compulsion or inducement whatever."
The tests provided by the law to be applied to confessions are not entirely to insure the truth, as some have supposed, but there is a more humanitarian consideration, which the law has seen fit to throw around the mentally weak, that they may be on an equal footing with their more intelligent brethren, and this has been embodied in the fifth amendment to the United States Constitution, wherein it is said: "No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."
Constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed. Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616.
If the facts as to Which he is interrogated, form but one link in the chain of evidence, which is to convict him, he is protected from its consequences. And whether it may tend to incriminate or expose the witness, is a point upon which the court is bound to instruct him; and which the court will determine under all circumstances of the case. 1 Greenleaf Ev. § 451.
The supreme court of Mississippi, speaking through Arnold, J., in the case of Ellis v. State, 65 Miss. 48, said: "If there is a reasonable doubt against it (confession) being free and voluntary, it should be excluded from the jury."
It is said that by the term "voluntary" is meant a proceeding from the spontaneous operation of the party's own mind, free from the influence of any extraneous disturbing cause. People v. McMahon, 15 N.Y. 384.
A party must be allowed to make his own calculations as to the advantages to be derived from confessing. State v. Smith, 72 Miss. 420.
In determining whether a confession was voluntary, the age, situation, experience, intelligence, character, and disposition of the accused, and the circumstances under which the confession was made are relevant. 12 Cyc. 480.
The court below refused to permit counsel for the defense to offer in evidence, the testimony of witnesses who had known. appellant intimately for many years to show the mental condition of appellant. This was error. It seems to be well settled law that witnesses, though not experts, where they had had the opportunity to judge from close observation, may testify as to the sanity or insanity of the accused. 1 Wharton Ev. 451; Wood v. State, 58 Miss. 741.
If the confessions are introduced in evidence by the state, the accused who, under the statute, has the right to testify in his own behalf, should be allowed to explain his mental condition when he confessed. Simmons v. State, 61 Miss. 243. Then why should not evidence to show mental incapacity be admissible?
In the case of Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, the words used by the police officer to the accused were conceded by the court to be neither a threat nor a promise, and yet the court reached the conclusion that there was sufficient in them to make any conviction or statement by the accused inadmissible. The testimony of the detective, because of the admission of which the supreme court of the United States, ordered a new trial, was as follows:
Vernon D. Rowe, on the same side.
The conviction of appellant rests upon the so-called confession made to the witness Riddle. Appellant was on trial for his life, and it was clearly proved that he is a weak-minded idiotic, and half-witted man, and has been so regarded for many years; and for this reason alone, this confession should be received with the greatest degree of caution.
The mental weakness of the accused does not alone exclude his confession, although a confession by a weak-minded person is to be received with caution; but if the fact of mental incapacity was coupled with circumstances calculated to inspire fear, the confession is not admissible. 12 Cyc. 477.
In the first place the court below committed serious error when it permitted the witness Riddle to express his opinion as to whether the confession was voluntary. Riddle was introduced by the state, and testified that others were present in the room when the confession was alleged to have been made. One Felder testified that he was present when the confession was alleged to have been made but the court below erroneously held that he could not testify to just what was said and done. The truth is, there was really no confession, because of the fact that the appellant, a weak-minded man, was in the custody of officers who conducted him to a room and after locking the door repeatedly accused him of committing the crime. Now, is it possible that this can be called the free and voluntary confession as demanded by the law? Riddle, the witness to whom the confession is alleged to have been made was an officer of the law, and had appellant under arrest; he made statements to appellant, the purpose of which were to make appellant believe that he knew of the crime and believed him guilty. A confession made under such circumstances could never be called free and voluntary. It would have been inadmissible had Riddle been a private citizen, and it should be looked upon with disfavor because he was an officer. Not many confessions, made to officers, can stand the test of the law, because peace officers, many times, become over-zealous for convictions and therein they over-step the bounds of the law by almost invariably extorting...
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