Palmore v. State

• Decision Date: 08 April 1943
• Docket Number: 4 Div. 281.
• Citation: 12 So.2d 854,244 Ala. 227
• Parties: PALMORE v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

12 So.2d 854

244 Ala. 227

PALMORE v. STATE.

4 Div. 281.

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 8, 1943

O S. Lewis, of Dothan, for appellant.

Wm N. McQueen, Acting Atty. Gen., and Bernard F. Sykes, Asst Atty. Gen., for the State.

BOULDIN Justice.

Appellant Wash Palmore, was indicted for the murder of Curtis Warren, was convicted of murder in the first degree, and punishment fixed at imprisonment for life.

The grave question on this appeal is the ruling of the trial court admitting in evidence a confession reduced to writing and signed by defendant.

Curtis Warren, a white man, resident of Donalsonville, in the State of Georgia, came to his death by violence on the night of May 19, 1941, in Houston County, Alabama, at a point on the highway leading from Donalsonville, Georgia, to Dothan, Alabama. Wash Palmore, a negro, was at the time an employee of Mr. Warren, and continued in such employment by his widow until July 6, 1941.

Sid Howell, of Blakely, Georgia, onetime sheriff of that county and for twenty-five years connected with the sheriff's office, but now a private citizen, undertook to investigate the murder of Mr. Warren, and was paid $200 by the mother of the deceased. Clarence May, of Dothan, was enlisted to collaborate with Howell.

On Sunday, July 6, 1941, Howell, or Howell and May, caused Palmore to be arrested in Donalsonville, and brought to Dothan, and there lodged in jail. No warrant was sworn out, nor commitment obtained. Palmore was thus detained as a prisoner until Friday, July 11th, when the county solicitor at Dothan and an Alabama Highway Patrolman took the prisoner out of jail and returned him to his home in Donalsonville. Howell intercepted the party enroute, and requested the prisoner be turned over to him. This request was denied. A few minutes after his release, Howell took Palmore into custody, and caused him to be transported to and put in jail at Ft. Gaines, in another Georgia county. There he remained until Sunday, July 13th, when Howell removed him to the jail in Dawson, in still another Georgia county, and there confined him until the afternoon of Saturday, July 19th. Meantime Howell was interviewing and questioning the prisoner. He went to Dawson and had such interview on Tuesday following his incarceration on Sunday. After this interview the prisoner was put on a diet of bread and water by Sheriff Turner, in charge, from Tuesday night until Thursday.

On Saturday, July 19th, May, with two other private citizens, Adams and Forrester, went by automobile from Dothan to Dawson, picking up Howell enroute. The negro prisoner was taken from jail, and with the five white men, Howell, May, Turner, Adams and Forrester, removed from Dawson to Dothan. They left Dawson 4:30 to 6 P. M., as estimated by different witnesses, and arrived at Dothan, a distance of some ninety miles, at 12 P. M. to 1 A. M. Sunday. There was a stop enroute before reaching Blakely. Here, a confession of guilt was obtained.

We omit the testimony of defendant touching accusations, importunities, threats, and violence during his incarceration and enroute on this occasion. Howell and the others, except Mr. Forrester, who was not examined, all deny any violence, threats, or promises inciting hope or fear. Without question the prisoner was shackled with handcuffs and leg irons before leaving Dawson and down to the oral confession enroute.

We quote from the testimony of Mr. May:

"We stopped on the way. That is where he started to make a confession on the road between Dawson and Blakely. About 12 or 15 miles below Dawson. It may have been 20 miles this side of Dawson. I imagine we were there probably 40 minutes or an hour.

"Q. Persuading him to confess? A. No persuasion was used. There was plenty talking to him about confession. We were not talking to him to dissuade him.

"Q. If you were talking to him about making the confession was it to persuade one? To which question the State objected, which objection being considered by the court was ordered and adjudged sustained to which ruling of the court the defendant duly excepted.

"Q. You all talked to him about confession? A. I think all of us talked to him. Some of us talked to him separate, not all of them, Sid talked to him some to himself and Sid and I talked to him together a little. Ways from the others and all of us talked to him about it.

"Q. About confessing?

"A. About committing the crime.

"I don't say we were trying to get him to confess. We were talking to him about confessing and he did confess. We were trying to find out who committed the crime. We told him we had evidence that convinced us he had committed the crime and he might as well confess. Sure that isn't at all uncommon. It was there on that occasion he started his confession. I don't know that we stopped any more from that place to Blakely. Drove slowly and talked about it all along. He was telling us more in detail as we came along. All of us were asking him questions about it. I can't tell you everything we said but I can tell you some of the things. We had witnesses. In other words I told him about knowing about his trip he made to Florida one night that the crime was committed and asked him wasn't he going down there to cover up something that was done in connection with the killing. That was the time he went down to Marianna, at the time he had gone to Panama City to tell a man not to say anything.

"Q. You told him you knew he had gone to Panama City and didn't you tell him you all knew he was guilty and he might as well confess it? A. Some of us might have told him that. I don't say we didn't tell him that. We were convinced he was guilty."

Mr. Turner's testimony was to like effect.

No charge had been preferred in any county nor warrant of arrest issued.

The statutes of Georgia, put in evidence, read:

"27-211. A private person may arrest an offender, if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge; and if the offense is a felony, and the offender is escaping, or attempting to escape, a private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion."

"27-212. In every case of an arrest without warrant, the person arresting shall, without delay, convey the offender before the most convenient officer authorized to receive an affidavit and issue a warrant. No such imprisonment shall be legal beyond a reasonable time allowed for this purpose."

The following conclusions we deem inescapable:

1st. The accused was taken into custody, deprived of his liberty, shackled, confined in jail, and maltreated by a private citizen, in violation of the law, and in utter disregard of the fundamental rights of a citizen of the United States.

2nd. He was transferred from jail to jail at a distance and cut off from communication with friends or legal counsel.

3rd. All this with a view to having complete domination over him. Believing the accused to be guilty, Howell took these oppressive measures to wring from him a confession of guilt.

4th. These flagrant invasions of the constitutional rights of the citizen had a direct influence, in the relation of cause and effect, in the procurement of the confession.

A confession so obtained cannot be held a voluntary confession and a conviction predicated thereon is a denial of due process of law guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. Amend. 14. This, we think, is now fully settled by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. McNabb v. United States, 63...