Fuller v. State

• Decision Date: 26 February 1900
• Parties: FULLER v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

35 S.E. 298

109 Ga. 809

FULLER v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Georgia

February 26, 1900

Syllabus by the Court.

1. An incriminating admission is not necessarily, as matter of law to be treated as involuntary because made by a prisoner confined in jail to the sheriff under such circumstances as the following: The officer had caused the prisoner and his cell mate to be brought into the office of the jail, when the latter stated to the former, "Tell [the sheriff] what you said to me last night." Thereupon the officer said "Yes; let me hear what you have got to say." The admission was then made, and as to it the officer testified that it was not induced by any hope of benefit or fear of injury.

2. While a wife, save as expressly provided by statute, is not a competent witness for or against her husband when he is on trial for a criminal offense, a married woman is not rendered incompetent to testify on the trial of one not her husband because the latter may be in jail "under a commitment warrant charging him with" the identical offense for which the other is being tried.

3. The evidence was sufficient to sustain the verdict.

Error from superior court, Bibb county; W. H. Felton, Jr., Judge.

Allen Fuller was convicted of murder, and brings error. Affirmed.

Claud Estes, N.E. Harris, and W. Dessau, for plaintiff in error.

Robt. Hodges, Sol. Gen., and J. M. Terrell, Atty. Gen., for the State.

LEWIS J.

Allen Fuller was indicted, tried, and found guilty in Bibb superior court under an indictment charging him with the murder of Mrs. Eugenia Hamilton Pottle, alleged to have been committed in that county on November 20, 1899, whereupon he made a motion for a new trial, which was overruled by the judge below, and upon this ruling he assigns error in his bill of exceptions.

1. Among the grounds in the motion for a new trial is alleged error in the court allowing, over objection of defendant's counsel, G. S. Westcott, sheriff of Bibb county, when being examined as a witness for the state, to testify substantially as follows: Witness saw Allen Fuller for the first time in the office of the county jail Thursday before the body of the deceased was found. He had a conversation with defendant on information received from a fellow prisoner by the name of Lowe, who slept with defendant the night before. At the conversation there were present Lowe and Deputy Sheriff Herrington. Witness had Allen Fuller brought into his office in the jail, and Lowe told defendant to tell witness what he told him (Lowe) the night before. Neither witness nor Herrington nor any one offered any inducement to defendant for him to make a statement. Lowe said to defendant, "Tell Mr. Westcott what you said to me last night." Witness remarked, "Yes; let me hear what you have got to say." Herrington said nothing. The next person who spoke was Allen Fuller. Nothing was done or said to him by any one, more than what has been stated. Fuller stated, in substance, that he wanted to tell who had killed Mrs. Pottle, that he had nothing to do with it. Witness then asked him who did the killing, and he replied that a negro boy by the name of Redd, who was then in jail, had done the killing. Witness asked him how he knew it. He answered, because Redd had told him so. Witness then asked him how came Redd to tell him so, and he replied that Redd came to him on a previous occasion, and wanted him to go with him and kill Mrs. Pottle; saying that he would get $200 for doing the deed, and that, if defendant would help him, he would divide the money with him. Defendant stated that he refused to do it, and had nothing to do with it. On the next day after Mrs. Pottle disappeared, defendant stated, Redd came to him and told him, "I got her last night." He told him that he had killed her, and said, "You keep your mouth shut about what has passed between us, and you will get what I promised you." Witness then asked defendant if Redd told him how he killed her. Defendant replied: "He told me she come to his house and wanted him to go home with her, and that he didn't like her, no way; that she owed him for some corn she borrowed from him. And he said that he consented to go, and went out in the yard and got the ax, and taken the blade off, and sorter held it under the arm or coat, and made it appear as if he was walking with a walking stick, and led her to the side of the little hill near the house, and as he was going down the hill he knocked her down with the ax, and she hollered one time, and he struck her four or five blows." Witness then asked the defendant if Redd told him what he did with the body. He replied, "Yes, he did;" that he took the body, carried it behind his house to a little charcoal kiln, chopped her up, and burned her up, and said, speaking to defendant, "If you will look about there you will find her, or some of her remains." "Redd said he had a fire for several days, and, if he had not got it plowed over you will find where he burnt her up."

It is contended by counsel for plaintiff in error that this testimony should not have been admitted under the circumstances set forth in the motion for a new trial, and substantially given above, for the reason that this conversation or incriminating statement by the defendant was not freely and voluntarily made. There is no question about the statement of the defendant admitted in evidence not being a confession. It was, on the contrary, an exculpatory statement, in which the defendant evidently sought to place the crime on another, and insist upon his own innocence of any participation in the crime. It is introduced, however, by the state as a circumstance, taken in connection with other facts proven, which tended to incriminate the prisoner. We think the sounder view of the law touching the admissibility of such declarations on the part of one charged with crime is to exclude them, if not voluntarily made, upon the same principle as the defendant's statement would be excluded if it amounted to a direct confession of guilt. But it is not necessary to decide directly this question, or to undertake to reconcile authorities or determine the weight of authority upon the subject; for, under the facts of this case, we think there is nothing in the record which indicates that this statement of the defendant was not freely and voluntarily made to the sheriff, without being induced by any hope of reward or fear of punishment, or that the will of the defendant was to any degree coerced or unduly persuaded. It is true this court has, in its adjudications upon the subject, attempted to impress upon sheriffs and other officers the gross impropriety of improperly obtaining confessions from prisoners in their custody; but there is nothing in the law, in any of the decisions of this court, or in any other court of last resort, of which we are aware, which would exclude a confession or an incriminating statement made to an officer, simply because the prisoner was in his custody, under arrest, at the time. In the case of Smith v. State, 88 Ga. 627, 15 S.E. 675, it was decided that a self-criminating admission made to the sheriff by a prisoner in jail in response to the sheriff's admonition in these terms: "You know your are the man. They got your cap, and you might as well own up,"--is of doubtful admissibility. The court did not grant a new trial in that case, because the other evidence showed the defendant's guilt beyond question; but the point we make on the decision is that, if in that case the confession made under the circumstances narrated was only of "doubtful admissibility," we cannot see that there can be any possible doubt about the admissibility of the evidence objected to in this case. Here, it will be noted, the sheriff received information from another prisoner of a statement made by this defendant inculpating another person as the guilty party, and simply remarked to him, "Yes; let me hear what you have got to say." We see nothing improper in the sheriff's conduct. He had received information that this defendant would relate facts to show the guilt of another party, and doubtless had no idea whatever of getting from him anything like a confession of guilt, and he did receive simply the information that he evidently expected. There was really nothing more in this statement made by the sheriff tending to incriminate the defendant, if as such, than the statement the defendant himself made before the jury on his trial. This is not near as strong a case for excluding the statement of the defendant as Miller v. State, 94 Ga. 1, 21 S.E. 128, where it was held: "That a fellow prisoner in jail with the accused, who was charged with murder, asked him about the killing, and 'told him he better tell the truth; the white folks were going to break somebody's neck,'--did not, as matter of absolute law, render inadmissible confessions then and there made in the presence and hearing of fellow prisoners only." Nor do we think it as strong a case as Willis v. State, 93 Ga. 208, 19 S.E. 43, where it was held: "Where one who has killed another surrenders himself to an arresting officer, the fact that the latter told the prisoner that giving himself up was the best course he could pursue did not render inadmissible confessions then made to the officer; it appearing that they were free and voluntary, and that the officer neither said nor did anything other than as above mentioned, before the confessions were made." But the case relied upon by counsel for plaintiff in error is Bram v. U.S. , 168 U.S. 532, 18 S.Ct. 183, 42 L.Ed. 568. By reading a report of the facts in that case, it will be seen they were entirely different from what the record in the case at bar presents. That was an indictment for murder alleged to have been committed on an American...