Preston v. United States, 6451.

• Decision Date: 11 November 1935
• Docket Number: No. 6451.,6451.
• Parties: PRESTON v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

65 App. DC 110, 80 F.2d 702 (1935)

PRESTON v. UNITED STATES.

No. 6451.

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Argued October 10, 1935.

Decided November 11, 1935.

J. Y. E. Allen, of Washington, D. C., for appellant.

Leslie C. Garnett, U. S. Atty., and Roger Robb, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of Washington, D. C.

Before MARTIN, Chief Justice, and VAN ORSDEL, GRONER, and STEPHENS, Associate Justices.

GRONER, Associate Justice.

Appellant was convicted of murder. On appeal to this court he makes two assignments of error. First, that the court erred in admitting in evidence a written confession made by him to the police; and, second, that the court erred in refusing to admit in evidence the police court record of the deceased.

We think that neither assignment can be sustained.

The grounds alleged to support the first are that the evidence shows that appellant "could scarcely read and write," and that the confession was read over to him by one of the officers and he signed his name to it without himself reading or properly understanding it. In the argument here counsel stated as another ground that at the time the statement was taken the police were in a hurry to attend the inquest called for noon of that day, and that a fair inference is that they were careless in taking down appellant's answers to the questions asked him, and that the answers were not correctly transcribed. There is, however, no charge that appellant made the statement in consequence of inducements of a temporal nature, held out by the police, or because of a threat or promise by or in the presence of the police, which, operating upon his fears or hopes, deprived him of that freedom of will or self-control essential to make his confession voluntary within the meaning of the law. Wilson v. United States, 162 U.S. 613, at page 622, 16 S.Ct. 895, 40 L. Ed. 1090. Nor does appellant claim that the confession was made under excitement or at a time when he was not fully conscious of his act. In short, there is nothing even tending to show that the confession was not made freely, voluntarily, and without compulsion or inducement of any sort. It was made two days after the killing, and the officers who obtained it testified, without contradiction, that before it was taken appellant was advised that he was not required to make a statement, but, if he made one, it would be used in his trial against him. In these circumstances it is perfectly clear that the confession was the voluntary act of accused wholly free from extraneous influences of any character, and in the circumstances narrated it is equally clear the objection went not to the admissibility of the confession, but alone to its weight; and that question was solely for the jury.

The second assignment grew out of the offer of the accused, rejected by the trial court, to prove the police record of deceased. The government objected on the ground that the record showed no convictions, and...