Scarbrough v. State
| Citation | 204 Miss. 487,37 So.2d 748 |
| Decision Date | 13 December 1948 |
| Docket Number | 36889. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi |
| Parties | SCARBROUGH v. STATE. |
W. F. Latham, of Quitman, for appellant.
Greek L. Rice, Atty. Gen., and R. O. Arrington Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The conviction of the defendant, Clyde Scarbrough, for the crime of burglary was not had as a result of a fair and impartial trial, even though there was an issue of fact to be properly submitted to the jury as to whether corporal punishment was inflicted on the accused after he had accommodated the officers by making a free and voluntary confession or whether it was inflicted immediately prior thereto.
During the month of October, 1947, a store building in the Town of Quitman, where the defendant resided, was burglarized during the nighttime, and some shirts, pants, and cartons of cigarettes were stolen. As would naturally be expected there were no eye witnesses to the burglary. None of the stolen goods were ever found in the possession of the defendant. At that time, his nephew was in jail at Quitman for having stolen a radio. The sheriff of the County placed the defendant under arrest during the day following the burglary, but he was released from custody during that same day. It is not clear as to which of these two separate and distinct offenses he was then accused of.
About two weeks later, the city marshal, his son, and the night marshal, took the defendant in custody one night and carried him in an automobile to the county courthouse. These two officers testified that when they arrived there they talked to the defendant in the car about the burglary before taking him up into the courtroom and thence to jail; that he freely and voluntarily admitted in the car that he had burglarized the store, stolen the goods in question and had traded them for whiskey to a named individual. None of the goods were shown to have been found in the possession of such individual.
The city marshal testified that after they went into the courthouse, the defendant retracted his statement as to who he traded the goods to for whiskey, and that he then struck the defendant a time or two with a 'slapper' made of leather, like two pieces of wagon lines; that he did this when the defendant had thus changed his statement from what he had said while in the car; and, it was shown that a written confession of the burglary was signed in the courthouse by the defendant using an x mark, but this writing was not offered in evidence, evidently because it was signed after the defendant had been punished. The night marshal heard the blows from an adjoining room and testified that while the defendant was in the courtroom he was well-behaved in his attitude toward the other officer.
The prosecution relied upon the confession which is claimed to have been made in the car freely and voluntarily before the punishment was administered, and also upon a subsequent statement alleged to have been freely and voluntarily made to the constable of the district, on the street, during the daytime.
The defendant testified that after he was taken into custody by the day and night marshals, and while they all were in the car, he was struck by the son of the day marshal with a blackjack, and that they then questioned him in regard to the radio which had been stolen on a different occasion than when the store was burglarized, and that when he was questioned following the blow struck by the son he did not admit any connection with the burglary, until the blows were thereafter inflicted by the city marshall in the courtroom; that he then confessed that he committed the burglary, but that his confession in that behalf was untrue.
It was a question for the jury as to whether or not the defendant was punished after he had already confessed to the burglary. However, some of the Judges are of the opinion that under the case of White v. State, 129 Miss. 182, 91 So. 903 24 A.L.R. 699, the confession of the burglary, whether immediately before or immediately after the blows were struck in the courthouse, was so closely connected with what transpired in the car as to render the confession involuntary. Whereas, the other Judges are of the opinion that the case at bar is distinguishable on its facts from those involved in the White case, supra, since in that case the accused...
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...State v. Scott, 111 Utah 9, 175 P.2d 1016 (1947). See also State v. Myrick, 181 Kan. 1056, 317 P.2d 485 (1957); Scarbrough v. State, 204 Miss. 487, 37 So.2d 748 (1948). 7. See generally exceptions set out in McCormick, Evidence § 8. See, e.g., Note, Other Crimes Evidence at Trial: of Balanc......
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Hopkins v. State, 90-KA-0921
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