Claflin v. State
| Decision Date | 06 December 1941 |
| Docket Number | 35182. |
| Citation | 154 Kan. 452,119 P.2d 540 |
| Parties | CLAFLIN v. STATE et al. |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
Where evidence of similar offenses is before the court and jury in a criminal trial, the state may be required to elect on which of them it will rely for conviction, but the state is given the privilege of asking a conviction for any offense within the scope of the information which it has proved to have occurred within two years, irrespective of the precise date of the crime charged in the information.
Where a 21-year-old youth is held in a room 16 1/2 hours by a number of police officers to induce him to make an admission, such an act is in the form of a coercion and grossly offends against constitutional privileges. Const.Kan.Bill of Rights § 10; U.S.C.A.Const. Amend. 5.
Where within the space of three weeks four separate attempts were made to destroy a house by fire and offenses of arson charged against accused were originally charged in four counts of a single complaint and there was no change, when by a mere strategical maneuver of the prosecution, the same four identical charges were filed against accused in four separate complaints, and evidence relied on for conviction on information brought to trial was purported confession completely covering all attempts, the acquittal on the one information entitled the accused to discharge in habeas corpus proceedings. Gen.St.1935, 62-1449.
In the circumstances stated in the opinion, the petitioner was properly discharged from custody on a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to the statute of 1935 (G.S.1935, 62-1449) supplemental to the provisions of the code of criminal procedure pertaining to jeopardy.
Appeal from District Court, Douglas County; Hugh Means, Judge.
Habeas corpus proceeding by John M. Claflin against State of Kansas and another. From a judgment discharging John M. Claflin, the defendants appeal.
Jay S Parker, Atty. Gen., A. B. Mitchell, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Milton P. Beach, Co. Atty., and George K. Melvin, both of Lawrence, for appellants.
Edward Rooney, Jacob A. Dickinson, and Edward Rooney, Jr., all of Topeka, and Edward T. Riling and John J. Riling, both of Lawrence, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a judgment discharging John M. Claflin from the custody of the sheriff of Douglas county on a writ of habeas corpus.
The correctness of that judgment turns upon the statute enacted in 1935 as a supplement to the provisions of the criminal code relating to jeopardy. G.S.1935, 62-1449.
The material facts were these: In the autumn of 1939, John M. Claflin was an undergraduate student at the state university and resided at the house of the Phi Delta Theta college fraternity. Within the space of three weeks, four separate attempts were made to destroy that fraternity house by fire--on October 24 a fire was set in a bathroom on the third floor; on October 30 at 1:30 o'clock, a. m. a similar fire was set; on the same day at 6:15 o'clock, p. m. a fire was set to some quiz papers stored in a trunk room in the attic; and on November 12, a lighted cigarette was set in a box of matches placed in a closet containing gymnasium clothes.
On February 23, 1940, a complaint was sworn to by the state fire marshal before a justice of the peace of Douglas county charging John M. Claflin in four separate counts with the crime of arson as indicated above. Whether a warrant was issued and Claflin arrested thereon does not appear. Later, on March 18, 1940, the state fire marshal swore to four separate complaints charging Claflin with the crime of arson as indicated above, and on March 26, the first complaint in four counts was dismissed.
On April 13, Claflin appeared before the justice of the peace and waived a preliminary hearing and was bound over to the district court on the four separate charges of arson. On May 4, 1940, four separate informations were filed against him. These were identical in every particular except as to dates. One of these, numbered 3786, in its charging part, reads thus:
Endorsed on each of the four informations were identical lists of witnesses, nineteen in number.
On June 20, 1940, Claflin was brought to trial before a jury on the information numbered 3786. The trial lasted five days.
The only material evidence bearing on Claflin's guilt was a purported confession he had given in a room in the Eldridge Hotel, to which place he was taken by the state fire marshal and several other public officials about 1:30 o'clock in the afternoon of February 20, and subjected to protracted questioning to induce him to confess to the crimes of which he was accused. This ordeal lasted throughout that afternoon and night and until 6 o'clock next morning, a matter of 16 1/2 hours, and culminated in the signing of a statement by Claflin acknowledging that he and he alone had set the four separate fires in the fraternity house on the dates covered in the four complaints, and for one of which offenses as charged in Information No. 3786 he was on trial. The statement was in the form of questions propounded by one Spaulding, a detective, and answers by Claflin. It occupies ten printed pages of the abstract; but one Peter Kelly, a district court reporter, who took this examination in shorthand and transcribed it, testified that during the long watches of the night when this examination was going on he, Kelly, "went to sleep once; that he had no idea what time he went to sleep, but probably about midnight; that he went to sleep while he was listening; that in the room with Kelly was Mr. Latchem, Mr. Gray, and Mr. Rankin, and that there were two adjoining rooms *** that but a small portion of the conversation was taken in shorthand and transcribed; that he did not know whether or not it would be as much as five percent; that he, Kelly, was left to his own judgment as to what portions of the conversation to take; *** that the defendant was quizzed by Latchem, Spaulding and Rankin; ***."
In the criminal trial, the trial court instructed the jury thus:
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Berkowitz, Application of
...in In re Christensen, 166 Kan. 671, 203 P.2d 258 (1949); Struble v. Gnadt, 164 Kan. 587, 191 P.2d 179 (1948); Claflin v. State, 154 Kan. 452, 119 P.2d 540 (1941); and In re Lewis, 152 Kan. 193, 102 P.2d 981 We therefore conclude that habeas corpus is an appropriate vehicle for challenging a......
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State v. Neff
...of the first case tried would have been barred by virtue of that statute. State v. Momb, 154 Kan. 435, 119 P.2d 544; Claflin v. State, 154 Kan. 452, 119 P.2d 540. The state was not compelled to pursue a course which precluded a trial of both offenses. Separate instructions were given coveri......
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State v. Todd, 78083
...State v. McCarther, 198 Kan. 48, 50, 422 P.2d 1012 (1967); Struble v. Gnadt, 164 Kan. 587, 590, 191 P.2d 179 (1948); Claflin v. State, 154 Kan. 452, 119 P.2d 540 (1941); State v. Momb, 154 Kan. 435, 119 P.2d 544 (1941); and State v. Brown, 146 Kan. 525, 73 P.2d 19 (1937). Here, there is not......
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State v. McCarther
...misconduct of law enforcement officials, see State ex rel. v. Jackson, 139 Kan. 744, 33 P.2d 118, 100 A.L.R. 1394; and Claflin v. State, 154 Kan. 452, 119 P.2d 540. $The admissibility of confessions and admissions in evidence is covered by the rules of evidence embodied in our K.S.A. 60-460......
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REPUGNANT PRECEDENTS AND THE COURT OF HISTORY.
...10 Va. L. Rev. 361, 382 (1924))). (141.) Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 172 (1952). (142.) See id. at 173. (143.) Claflin v. State, 119 P.2d 540, 543 (Kan. (144.) Boon v. State, 1 Ga. 618,631 (1846). (145.) Buck v. Chesapeake Ins. Co., 4 F. Cas. 545,545 (C.C.D. Md. 1829) (No. 2,078). (......