Edwards v. State

• Decision Date: 08 February 1950
• Docket Number: 75.
• Parties: EDWARDS v. STATE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

71 A.2d 487

194 Md. 387

EDWARDS v. STATE.

No. 75.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

February 8, 1950

William J. McWilliams and Ridgely P. Melvin, Jr. Annapolis, for appellant.

Kenneth C Proctor, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Anselm Sodaro, Asst State's Atty., Baltimore City, Baltimore (Hall Hammond Atty. Gen., J. Bernard Wells, State's Atty., Baltimore City, Baltimore, and James C. Morton, Jr., States Atty., Anne Arundel Co., Annapolis, on the brief), for appellee.

Before MARBURY, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, GRASON, HENDERSON and MARKELL, JJ.

COLLINS, Judge.

The appellant Thomas Alexander Edwards, was indicted, on two separate indictments, for the murders of John L. Mahlan and Mary Kline on September 17th, 1948, in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. The cases were removed to Baltimore City. To both indictments he pleaded not guilty and elected to be tried by the court without a jury. He was found guilty in both cases of murder in the first degree and, after motions for new trials were overruled, was sentenced to death by hanging. From those judgments appellant has appealed to this Court.

Appellant contends primarily that it was error for the trial court not to have excluded from the evidence the confession. Appellant offers several contentions why the confession should have been excluded.

It is contended that the detention of the appellant in custody without a warrant, and without ever having been taken before a magistrate, was illegal and constituted a denial of due process under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. He cites as authority, among other cases: Malinski v. People of State of New York, 324 U.S. 401, 65 S.Ct. 781, 89 L.Ed. 1029; Watts v. State of Indiana, 338 U.S. 49, 69 S.Ct. 1347; Turner v. State of Pennsylvania, 338 U.S. 62, 69 S.Ct. 1352; Harris v. State of South Carolina, 338 U.S. 68, 69 S.Ct. 1354. Edwards was first taken into custody on October 9th, 1948 when he was brought by the Anne Arundel County police to their headquarters at Ferndale in Anne Arundel County for questioning. No charge was placed against him at that time. He was put in a cell where he spent the night. On October 10th he was again questioned and taken to his home where an unexpended cartridge was found. He was returned to Ferndale and kept in custody that night. On October 11th he was taken from Ferndale to Baltimore. The purpose of that trip was an attempt to locate a man to whom appellant claimed he had sold his gun. He was returned to Ferndale at about 1:00 P.M. and detained that night. He was questioned the next day and released about 6:00 P.M. He was again taken into custody on November 8th, 1948, and taken to the Waterloo State Police Barracks in Anne Arundel County, where he was questioned and where he then told the officers exactly where his gun could be found. He was detained in custody at the Waterloo State Police Barracks and questioned until 7:15 P.M. on November 10th, when he was turned over to Chief Souers of the Anne Arundel County Police Department and thereupon taken by him to the Ferndale Police Station. Upon arrival there he was served with warrants charging him with the murders. He was questioned from 9:15 P.M. to 10:30 P.M. that evening. On November 11th, 1948, at about 5:25 A.M. he was taken from the Ferndale Police Station to Baltimore Detective Headquarters. At 11:30 A.M. that morning he was taken from his cell by Captain Kriss and questioned and made the confession at 2:25 P.M.

We are of opinion that the facts in this case do not show such unlawful detention to constitute denial of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. We have discussed this principle of law and most of the cases cited, in detail in the recent cases of Cox v. State, Md., 64 A.2d 732, decided March 10th, 1949; James v. State, Md., 65 A.2d 888, decided April 27, 1949; Grear v. State, Md., 71 A.2d 24. We do not deem it necessary to rediscuss that principle here.

Appellant claims that while at the Waterloo Station he was told he 'was not at Ferndale now.' This apparently is not specifically contradicted. The appellant also claims that while he was at Waterloo Station one of the officers 'had a rope from a string of lights, he kept on rolling like a slip knot to go on your neck, and I am watching him all the time.' This fact is not specifically denied. The appellant also testified that while he was at Waterloo the officers told him the reason they brought him up there was for his own protection to 'keep the people from Glen Burnie from lynching you.' This statement is absolutely denied by the officers. Appellant also contends that while he was being questioned by Captain Kriss in Baltimore and before he made his alleged confession that Captain Kriss said to him: 'If you don't say nothing we will send you back to Ferndale, * * * then I said I don't want any parts of Ferndale. * * *' He further stated that Captain Kriss said: 'If you tell me what I want to know I will see you don't go to Ferndale.' Captain Kriss denied that he ever made such a statement or threatened to send him back to Ferndale or promised to keep him in Baltimore City. Captain Kriss does admit that appellant said 'he didn't want any Waterloo police or any Ferndale police.' Where an attempt is made to offer a confession in evidence, and the accused says that the confession made by him was not obtained voluntarily but because of some threats or persuasions, it is then the duty of the trial court to determine whether the testimony of the accused or the testimony of the officers, who testified that no such threats or persuasions were made, is to be given the greater weight. This determination depends upon whether the State has met the burden of proof of establishing that the confession was freely and voluntarily made. We agree that the trial court, in view of the denials by the officers, was justified in holding that the confession was not obtained because of threats made by the officers that the appellant would be returned to Ferndale and possibly lynched. McCleary v. State, 122 Md. 394, 410, 89 A. 100; Demby v. State, 187 Md. 7, 48 A.2d 586, 590; Jones v. State, 188 Md. 263, 52 A.2d 484, 487.

During the time Captain Kriss was questioning the appellant, between the hours of 11:30 A.M. and 1:25 P.M. on November 11, 1948, Captain Kriss told the appellant, among other things, just before the alleged confession was made, 'I was equally concerned as the people who were aroused, and if he had any knowledge I would like to hear from him. He said his father told him that morning to tell the truth. I said, well, why don't you tell the truth. At about that time the sandwiches came in for his lunch, and he ate the two large sandwiches, and had a bottle of coco-cola. There was a third sandwich there, and he didn't care for it. I spoke to him again about his mother. Did your mother talk with you recently? He said, yes, she was at Waterloo yesterday. What does she say? She told me to tell the truth. Why don't you tell the truth? He said well, Captain, if I tell this story I am going to tell the whole story and I said to him, if you tell a story I only want the whole story, I don't want it half, I want it either all or none.' Appellant then asked Captain Kriss to call his father on the telephone. This was done and appellant was taken to his cell. The father came to Captain Kriss' office. Appellant was brought in and beginning about 2:30 P.M. made the confession to Captain Kriss in the presence of his father and Mrs. Batt, the stenographer. Mrs. Batt started taking notes at 2:30 P.M. and finished about 3:12 P.M. The notes were transcribed by Mrs. Batt by 4:50 P.M. and the confession signed by appellant five minutes later, with his father as a witness.

When Edwards took the stand to testify as to the admissibility of the confession, and after Captain Kriss had apparently testified in full as to its admissibility, Edwards said that Captain Kriss had left out a lot of what they had talked about. Edwards testified that 'Then he (Captain Kriss) keep talking, he goes in the drawer, pulls out a drawer, there is a letter in there. * * * He said yes, there is a letter I would not take a thousand dollars for. * * * So he started to read it, and after he read it to me the way it looked to me it had some kind of stuff in there about some guy was smart and the cops had him and he didn't want to talk. * * *. Then he goes down, the guy winds up and goes to the Penitentiary, and writes a letter back to him to tell him if he ever gets another smart guy like me to show him the letter. * * * So he hands me the letter and I read it.' Captain Kriss later admitted that he showed appellant this letter. He said: 'The letter is a letter sent to me from an inmate of the Maryland Penitentiary outlining that he was sorry he didn't listen to me. * * * Edwards paid me a compliment by saying, you are a square cop, and I believe you are fair, and I said to him, coincidentally, I have got a letter here that I received some time back from a person who is now in prison. You want to read it? and I showed it to him.' This letter offered in evidence follows: June 21st, 1946.

'Captain Henry Kriss:----

'Here it is Captain, you ask me to drop you a line, and tell you that you were right. You were Captain, thank you for being so patient.

'It's over now as far as I'm concerned so I thought I'd get this over with. Because next week, next year won't change it any, the time I get won't matter either.

'You know it's really a laugh Captain how a person who has been around as much as I could be so wrong, on everything. All my life it's been the 'cop' who was wrong. I know now that was true, I made the fatal mistake of not knowing a right cop when I saw...