State ex rel. White v. Mohn, 14785

• Court: Supreme Court of West Virginia
• Writing for the Court: MILLER
• Citation: 283 S.E.2d 914,168 W.Va. 211
• Parties: STATE ex rel. Jesse W. WHITE v. Richard G. MOHN, Supt., WVP, etc.
• Docket Number: No. 14785,14785
• Decision Date: 03 November 1981

Page 914

283 S.E.2d 914 168 W.Va. 211 STATE ex rel. Jesse W. WHITE
v.
Richard G. MOHN, Supt., WVP, etc. No. 14785. Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Nov. 3, 1981.

Syllabus by the Court

1. "Where there is a failure to hold an in camera hearing on the defendant's inculpatory statements, we recognize under Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964), that the case will not be reversed for a new trial on this basis alone. Instead, it will be remanded for a voluntariness hearing before the trial court. If the trial court finds the statements are voluntary the verdict will stand. If, on the other hand, he finds the statements to be involuntary, the verdict will be set aside unless the trial court determines that this constitutional error is harmless[168 W.Va. 212] beyond a reasonable doubt." Syllabus Point 5, State v. Clawson, W.Va., 270 S.E.2d 659 (1980).

2. Syllabus Point 1 of State v. Fortner, 150 W.Va. 571, 148 S.E.2d 669 (1966), is overruled to the extent that it states that the failure to hold an in camera hearing on the voluntariness of a confession "constitutes reversible error." We also overrule similar language occurring in syllabus points of other post-Fortner cases.

3. "A spontaneous statement by a defendant made prior to any action by a police officer or before an accusation, arrest or any custodial interrogation is made or undertaken by the police may be admitted into evidence without the voluntariness thereof first having been determined in an in camera hearing." Syllabus Point 1, State v. Johnson, W.Va., 226 S.E.2d 442 (1976).

Page 915

Chauncey H. Browning, Jr., Atty. Gen. and Gregory W. Bailey, Deputy Atty. Gen., Charleston, for appellant.

Evans & Berry and Rodney T. Berry, Moundsville, for appellee.

MILLER, Justice:

On December 11, 1972, appellee Jesse W. White, was sentenced to life imprisonment in the State Penitentiary by the Common Pleas Court of Cabell County. He was previously convicted by a jury of first degree murder.

By an order entered on September 7, 1979, the Circuit Court of Marshall County awarded appellee a writ of habeas corpus. The Court declared White's conviction of first degree murder void and stayed the execution of the order to permit the State to take this appeal. The basis for [168 W.Va. 213] the lower court's ruling was that at White's criminal trial two inculpatory statements made by him were introduced into evidence without an in camera hearing to determine their voluntariness and, therefore, under Syllabus Point 1 of State v. Fortner, 150 W.Va. 571, 148 S.E.2d 669 (1966), ¹ and related cases, his conviction should be set aside. For reasons more fully elaborated herein, we reverse the judgment of the lower court.

Neither Fortner nor some of the cases following it ² gave any consideration to the case of Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964). In Jackson, the Supreme Court concluded that the failure to hold an in camera voluntariness hearing on the defendant's inculpatory statement would not automatically result in a reversal of his criminal conviction, but the case should be remanded for purposes of holding a voluntariness hearing. If, after such hearing, the statements were found to be voluntary, then the conviction would stand. On the other hand if the statements were found to be involuntary, the conviction would have to be set aside.

In State v. Brewster, W.Va., 261 S.E.2d 77, 82 (1979), we applied the Jackson v. Denno procedure in remanding a case to determine if the defendant's conviction should be reversed because he had been shackled throughout his trial. We directed the trial court to hold a hearing to ascertain if there was a factual necessity for the shackling. See also, State v. Lawson, W.Va., [168 W.Va. 214] 267 S.E.2d 438 (1980) (right to introduce blood test). In State v. Clawson, W.Va., 270 S.E.2d 659, 671 (1980), we specifically addressed the Jackson v. Denno principle in regard to the failure to hold an in camera hearing on an inculpatory statement. We held in Syllabus Point 5:

"Where there is a failure to hold an in camera hearing on the defendant's inculpatory statements, we recognize under Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964), that the case will not be reversed for a new trial on this basis alone. Instead, it will be remanded for a voluntariness hearing before the trial court. If the trial court finds the statements are voluntary the verdict will stand. If, on the other hand, he finds the statements to be involuntary, the verdict will be set aside unless the trial court determines that this constitutional error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt." ³

Page 916

Admittedly, the discussion of the Jackson v. Denno principle in State v. Clawson was not extensive because we reversed the conviction on another ground. We did not state in Clawson, as we do now, that Syllabus Point 1 of State v. Fortner, supra, ⁴ is overruled to the extent that it states that the failure to hold an in camera hearing on the voluntariness of a confession "constitutes reversible error." We also overrule similar language occurring in syllabus points of other post-Fortner cases. We conclude here that the proper procedure is that contained in Syllabus Point 5 of Clawson, supra.

Consequently, we hold that the lower court erred in concluding that White was entitled to have his conviction [168 W.Va. 215] set aside because of the failure to have a preliminary in camera hearing on the voluntariness of his inculpatory statements. Under Clawson and Jackson v. Denno, White was entitled to a voluntariness hearing. However, for the reasons set out below there was no reversible error in not holding the hearing, since it is abundantly clear from the record that his statements were spontaneous and made in a noncustodial...