Robinson v. State
| Decision Date | 04 April 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 28603,28603 |
| Citation | 205 S.E.2d 210,232 Ga. 123 |
| Parties | Willie E. ROBINSON v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Harrison, Jolles & Miller, Howard S. Bush, Augusta, for appellant.
Richard E. Allen, Dist. Atty., Augusta, Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., William F. Bartee, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Thomas P. Burke, Deputy Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, for appellee.
Syllabus Opinion by the Court
Willie E. Robinson appeals from his conviction of rape and sentence to life imprisonment. The trial evidence tended to show that the victim, a six-year-old girl, aftr a 30 minute absence from her home came back streaming blood and crying and told her mother that she had been 'raped.' The child underwent surgery to repair damage to the reproductive organs and was hospitalized for two days. In an attempt to eliminate medical evidence concerning the child's injuries, defense counsel twice offered at trial to stipulate that the child was 'raped.' The sole defense was alibi, Robinson giving a sworn statement placing himself elsewhere during the time of this attack. An investigating officer testified that he had talked to the victim and Robinson was apprehended by officers because he fit the child's description of her assailant including his wearing a peculiar, large silver belt buckle. The physical evidence included a piece of carpet from the scene of the attack containing blood of the victim's type and hair matching Robinson's.
The record has been presented in the foregoing detail to show that despite the victim's age, which might in other circumstances have justified consideration of statutory rape under Code Ann. § 26-2018, the record here is devoid of indications that the attack was other than forcible rape under Code Ann. § 26-2001, which was charged in the indictment. The only question presented by the alibi defense was whether Robinson was the perpetrator.
The state additionally introduced the following in-custody, written 'confession' by Robinson:
An officer who testified in regard to the written statement testified that Robinson had been told that he was accused of the rape of a six-year old child, and that before he agreed to give the written statement, 'he said he would tell us the truth and that he'd done it.' The state also introduced testimony by Robinson's wife that 'I told him that what he had done to that little girl was wrong, and he said he knowed that and he was sorry because it was a shame to me and Charles (her son).'
1. Enumeration 1 urges error in denying Robinson's new trial motion made on the general grounds and on other grounds the overruling of which are separately enumerated as error and discussed below. The record detailed above shows the evidence was ample to sustain the verdict and this enumeration of the general grounds is without merit.
2. It is contended in enumerated error 2 that the court erred in charging the jury with reference to the law of confessions because Robinson's statement was not a 'confession' in that it failed to acknowledge all the elements of the crime, specifically not admitting penetration. Where the accused has made only an incriminating statement and not a confession, it is prejudicial error to charge the law of confession. E.g., Pressley v. State, 201 Ga. 267, 272, 39 S.E.2d 478.
Although it has often been stated that to amount to a confession the statement of the accused must admit all the essential elements of the crime, e.g., Bloodworth v. State, 216 Ga. 572, 118 S.E.2d 374, study of the cases distinguishing between admissions and confessions shows that the true determinant is whether the statement is offered by the accused as exculpatory or inculpatory, see Covington v. State, 79 Ga. 687, 691, 7 S.E. 153; Owens v. State, 120 Ga. 296, 298, 48 S.E. 21; Fletcher v. State, 90 Ga. 468, 17 S.E. 100. That is, a mere incriminating statement is made where the accused, though admitting to damaging circumstances, nonetheless attempts to deny responsibility for the crime charged by putting forward exculpatory or legally justifying facts. Thus, 'A statement which includes facts or circumstances which show excuse or justification is not a confession of guilt even if it admits the main fact' Norrell v. State, 116 Ga.App. 479, 487, 157 S.E.2d 784, 791, and 'When a person admits only some subordinate fact or series of facts from which the jury may or may not infer guilt and which would be true whether the main fact existed or not, there is no confession.' Id. p. 486, 157 S.E.2d p. 791 (Emphasis supplied.) A confession, as distinct from an incriminating admission, is a statement inconsistent with the possibility of accused's innocence of the crime charged: Owens v. State, 120 Ga. 296, 299, 48 S.E. 21, 23 supra. Thus, for example, the accused's statement 1 in Chappell v. State, 71 Ga.App. 147, 30 S.E.2d 289 was held not to be a confession, when the statement itself injected the theory of self-defense; and the statement in Bloodworth v. State, 216 Ga. 572, 118 S.E.2d 374 supra, that accused 'tried to have intercourse with her and she started to crying and he stopped' was held not to be a confession where accused affirmatively stated that he abandoned the criminal enterprise before completion of it.
Applying this discussion to Robinson's statement, it is true as Robinson contends that the statement makes no mention of penetration, and states only that 'everything started getting fuzzy.' However, Robinson, unlike Bloodworth, nowhere stated that he abandoned his attempt. The concluding portion of Robinson's statement concerns his subsequent efforts to conceal evidence of the crime. These factors distinguish Bloodworth and make of the statement under consideration a confession because the attack in question upon the child has been admitted, subject to a memory lapse, without exculpation or justification, and the statement is not one from which the jury could infer innocence. The attack admitted by the statement was shown by the other evidence to have been forcible rape. The statement, taken as a whole, can only be thought to have been given by Robinson for the purpose of assuming responsibility for the crime charged, as he assumed it in the oral statements to which an officer and his wife testified. All these statements taken together constitute a confession, and there was no error in the trial court's charging on confession.
3. It is asserted in enumerated error 3 that the trial court erred in failing to charge on the lesser crimes of enticing a child for indecent purposes, assault with intent to commit rape, molestation of a child, and...
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