Bryant v. State
| Decision Date | 15 January 1941 |
| Docket Number | 13552. |
| Parties | BRYANT v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied March 14, 1941. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] [Copyrighted Material Omitted]
Syllabus by the Court.
1. '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.' Code, § 37-411. Before an alleged confession or incriminatory statement can properly be admitted in evidence, there must be a prima facie showing made by the State or elicited by the court that it was freely and voluntarily made, without hope of reward or fear of punishment. If such preliminary proof fails to meet the requirements of the statute, it is the duty of the court to exclude the confession from evidence. Where such proper preliminary proof has been made, the confession or incriminatory statement becomes admissible; but the defendant is privileged to attack such showing by proof that the confession or incriminatory statement was not voluntary or was made with hope of benefit or fear of injury. In that event, the question as to the voluntary character of the confession becomes one for the jury.
(a) In the instant case, with respect to the alleged original confessions made to the officers--since such a prima facie showing was made by the unequivocal testimony of the officers, and since the proved facts and attendant circumstances elicited by the defendant on cross-examination of these witnesses in no wise directly disputed their testimony, but at the most merely presented an issue to be resolved by the jury as to whether or not the evidence as to the surrounding facts and circumstances thus elicited could be taken to impair the unequivocal preliminary proof, the court did not err in admitting the confessions made to the officers, or in refusing to exclude them on subsequent motion, but properly left it to the jury to determine whether or not such confessions and incriminatory statements were in fact voluntarily made.
(b) With respect to the subsequent confessions and incriminatory statements made to other persons, it is the rule that the question as to whether or not such subsequent confessions and statements, themselves wholly unexceptionable, were made under previous undue influences still operating on the mind of the defendant, is not a question of law for the court, but one of fact for the jury. Accordingly, as to these subsequent confessions and incriminatory statements, the court did not err in refusing to exclude such evidence and in submitting to the jury the question as to its voluntary character.
(c) Although the facts in evidence will be examined to determine whether or not they show a conviction by use of a coerced confession, in violation of the due-process clause of the 14th amendment to the Federal constitution (Code,§ 1-815), or the provision in the State constitution against self-incrimination (art. 1, sec. 1, par. 6, Code, § 2-106), when such a question has been properly raised and presented, yet, where a prima facie case as to the voluntary character of the confession has been made, it is not within the power of this court to usurp the function of the jury in passing upon an issue, and to override their verdict supported by legal evidence and upheld by the judge in refusing a new trial, or to reverse a ruling admitting the confession in evidence, unless the evidence requires but one rational inference, that the confession was unlawfully obtained. Under this and the preceding rulings, the judge did not err in refusing to exclude from evidence the alleged illegal confessions and incriminatory statements of the defendant.
2. The court did not err in excluding from evidence accusations and sentences in a city court against a witness for the State, who on cross-examination testified that he had never been in jail on any charge before the one on which he was then serving a sentence: first, since the offenses did not involve moral turpitude, the accusations were inadmissible to prove general bad character; and second, since testimony merely that a witness has been in jail is irrelevant (Beach v. State, 138 Ga. 265, 75 S.E. 139; Whitley v. State, 188 Ga. 177, 179 [5], 180, 3 S.E.2d 588, and cit.; Reid v. State, 49 Ga.App. 429, 176 S.E. 100, and cit.), and 'a witness may not be impeached by simply showing that he had made a statement not material to the issue,' such evidence was inadmissible to controvert the witness. Green v. State, 43 Ga. 368(2); Mitchum v. State, 11 Ga. 615(8); Clarke v. State, 41 Ga.App. 556, 153 S.E. 616; Poland v. Osborne Lumber Co., 37 Ga.App. 212, 139 S.E. 734.
3. The court did not err in excluding testimony of two witnesses, as to whether in their investigations at pawnshops they had found 'any trace' of the pistol with which the alleged homicide had been committed, and whether they had found 'where [the pistol] came from there,' since, the weapon being in the possession of police officers at the time of the investigations, the expected answers of the witnesses would have rested upon hearsay.
4. There was no error in excluding, as hearsay, the testimony of a newspaper reporter as to what the solicitor-general told him 'of the solution of the * * * killing at that time.' The expected answer was inadmissible also as expressing a mere opinion that some one of three men then under arrest had fired the fatal shot, the defendant not then being in custody. See Green v. State, 112 Ga. 638, 37 S.E. 885, and cit.; Woolfolk v. State, 81 Ga. 551, 8 S.E. 724; Tiller v. State, 96 Ga. 430(3), 433, 23 S.E. 825; Beach v. State, 138 Ga. 265(2), 75 S.E. 139, supra.
5. The court properly refused permission to counsel for the defendant to read and comment, in his final argument to the jury, on an extract from a book entitled 'Convicting the Innocent,' relating to other criminal cases which involved the innocence or sanity of other accused persons, the methods of obtaining confessions in those cases, and the report of a Federal commission on lawlessness in law enforcement, together with facts in those extraneous cases and investigations, and the opinions of the author and physicians as to such matters. See Jones v. State, 166 Ga. 251, 254, 142 S.E. 866; Quattlebaum v. State, 119 Ga. 433, 46 S.E. 677; Johnston v. Richmond & D. R. Co., 96 Ga. 685, 22 S.E. 694.
6. The use of the word 'onus' instead of burden in stating that it was for the accused to establish his contention of alibi, 'not beyond a reasonable doubt, but to the reasonable satisfaction of the jury,' could not reasonably have misled them, especially in view of the immediately succeeding explanation, that 'if the evidence as to alibi * * * has established to your reasonable satisfaction that the defendant was elsewhere when the alleged crime was committed, if one was committed, it would be your duty to acquit the defendant.'
7. The introduction of instructions as to conspiracy with the words, 'I think it proper to instruct you,' did not place undue emphasis on this theory of the State and constitute an expression of opinion that the court thought the defendant guilty under that theory. The instructions on the subject of conspiracy were not erroneous as unauthorized by evidence. Nor were they subject to the additional exception that the court in effect told the jury that if the defendant participated in the offense as a conspirator he would be guilty without regard to whether he was insane by reason of inability to distinguish between right and wrong. Elsewhere the judge charged fully as to the defense and law of insanity, and it was unnecessary to repeat these instructions in immediate connection with the law of conspiracy. Nor could the failure to charge the law of conspiracy and the law of insanity in juxtaposition have reasonably misled the jury into thinking that the charge as to insanity referred only to the theory that the defendant was the sole perpetrator of the homicide.
8. The court, having fully and correctly covered the law of insanity in the general charge, except as to the instruction thereafter considered, did not err in refusing to repeat in effect, on a request, language already given. This request was properly refused for the additional reason that its reference to 'the overwhelming power of mental disease,' was not adjusted to the evidence, which was limited to a general deficiency and weakness of mind rather than a defect due to disease.
9. The request to state the defendant's particular contention that the homicide was committed by some one else, and that if from the evidence or the defendant's statement 'there are circumstances indicating the guilt of a third person or persons sufficient to generate in your minds a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused, it would be your duty to acquit the defendant,' was sufficiently covered by the general charge.
10. The request to charge, that, 'unless you find that the alleged confession was voluntarily made under the rules I have heretofore given you in charge, the State's case is entirely dependent upon circumstantial evidence,' coupled with a definition of circumstantial evidence, and a statement that such evidence should exclude every reasonable hypothesis except guilt, was covered by the general charge. The request was properly refused for the additional reason that it referred only to a 'confession,' whereas the State relied on several alleged confessions, both written and oral, besides incriminatory notes.
11. For the reasons in the opinion, it was not error to exclude the testimony of a psychiatrist that he did not think 'an imbecile' or 'an idiot such as' the defendant 'is responsible.'
12. There is no merit in the exceptions to preliminary instructions given to the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Culombe v. Connecticut
...7, 26; and see Finley v. State, 1943, 153 Fla. 394, 14 So.2d 844; Rollins v. State, Fla.1949, 41 So.2d 885. Georgia: Bryant v. State, 1941, 191 Ga. 686, 13 S.E.2d 820; 1944, 197 Ga. 641, 30 S.E.2d 259; Russell v. State, 1943, 196 Ga. 275, 26 S.E.2d 528; and see Ferguson v. State, 1959, 215 ......
-
Food Fair, Inc. v. Mock
...151 S.E. 659) or because of proof of prior contradictory statements as to a wholly irrelevant and immaterial matter (Bryant v. State, 191 Ga. 686(2), 13 S.E.2d 820; Grant v. Hart, 197 Ga. 662(7), 30 S.E.2d 271; Benefield v. Malone, 112 Ga.App. 408, 411, 145 S.E.2d 732, supra), yet where suc......
-
Jackson v. Denno, 62
...Ga. 756, 762-763, 48 S.E.2d 377, 382 (1948); Coker v. State, 199 Ga. 20, 23-25, 33 S.E.2d 171, 173-174 (1945); Bryant v. State, 191 Ga. 686, 710-711, 13 S.E.2d 820, 836-837 (1941). IOWA: State v. Jones, 253 Iowa 829, 834-835, 113 N.W.2d 303, 307 (1962); State v. Hofer, 238 Iowa 820, 828, 82......
-
Simmons v. State
...as to the weight to be accorded this evidence. See, e.g., Phillips v. State, 206 Ga. 418(4c), 57 S.E.2d 555 (1950); Bryant v. State, 191 Ga. 686(1a), 13 S.E.2d 820 (1941); Williams v. State, 142 Ga.App. 764(9), 236 S.E.2d 893 (1977); Newton v. State, 132 Ga.App. 873(2), 209 S.E.2d 690 (1974......