State v. Boswell, 8843.

• Decision Date: 31 December 1947
• Docket Number: No. 8843.,8843.
• Citation: 56 A.2d 196
• Parties: STATE v. BOSWELL et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

56 A.2d 196

STATE

v.BOSWELL et al.

No. 8843.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Dec. 31, 1947.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; Philip C. Joslin, Judge.

Charlie Boswell and others were convicted of robbery, and they bring exceptions.

Exceptions overruled and case remitted.

John H. Nolan, Atty. Gen., and Raymond F. Henderson, Special Counsel, of Pawtucket, for the State.

Aram A. Arabian, Public Defender, of Providence, for defendants Charlie Boswell and John J. Lopes.

Joseph Mainelli, of Providence, for defendant Eugene F. Hammond.

CAPOTOSTO, Justice.

The indictment in this case charges that Charlie Boswell, John J. Lopes, Robert Hazard and Eugene F. Hammond, on May 9, 1945, at Providence, did rob one Mary Golden. All four defendants were found guilty by a jury in the superior court. After motions for a new trial by the defendants were heard and denied, Boswell, Lopes and Hammond duly prosecuted bills of exceptions to this court. Hazard was sentenced. The case is before us on the exceptions of Boswell, Lopes and Hammond to the denial of their respective motions for a directed verdict and for a new trial, and on numerous exceptions taken by each of them during the course of the trial. Hereinafter, unless otherwise specified, the term ‘defendants' exceptions' or terms of a similar tenor will refer to the exceptions of each defendant, singly and collectively.

At the hearing before us the defendants conceded that about noontime of May 9, 1945, Mary Golden, a married woman, then fifty-six years old, was robbed at her home in the city of Providence. In the circumstances a summary statement of the manner in which the crime was committed and of certain other acts intimately connected therewith and done in the course thereof is sufficient for our purposes.

The evidence is clear that on the day and at the time and place above indicated Mrs. Golden, who was alone in her home, answered the doorbell and was confronted by two and possibly three young men, one of whom put his hand over her face and mouth with sufficient force to draw blood from the nose. She was then pushed into her living quarters, forced down upon a chair and her head covered with a blanket, by which time she was partially unconscious. Shortly after her assailants had fled she regained consciousness and found herself on a bed. An investigation by her soon thereafter revealed that $18 and some war ration tokens were missing from her pocketbook. Medical evidence was introduced by the state, without objection from the defendants, that in addition to injuries to the face she had been the victim of indecent assaults.

Following a meager clue in the description of her assailants by Mrs. Golden, the Providence police began to work upon the case with the result that, in co-operation with the police of Baltimore, Maryland, they first arrested the defendant Hammond in that city on or about June 26, and, from information given by him, they shortly thereafter arrested the other three defendants in Providence. All four defendants finally signed and swore to written statements, in the form of questions and answers, confessing their respective participation in the crime.

It appears from these confessions that the four defendants met during the forenoon of May 9 and agreed to rob Mrs. Golden, expecting to get some $200. Hazard's part in the plan was to remain at the corner of Bowen and Benefit streets to warn the others if a policeman appeared. Mrs. Golden was then robbed in the manner hereinbefore outlined. The confessions disclose that in the course of the robbery at least one of the defendants committed an indecent assault on Mrs. Golden, and that other acts of depravity were committed upon her, apparently while she was in a stupor, by one or more of the others.

Under numerous exceptions the defendants now contend that the confessions were inadmissible in evidence because (1) they were not voluntary; (2) the corpus delicti was not proven before the confessions were admitted; (3) the confessions referred to other and independent crimes; and (4) each confession contained statements implicating the other codefendants. Before proceeding with the consideration of these contentions we note that the defense for each defendant was an alibi. The evidence in their behalf was that they knew nothing of the robbery, and that at the time in question each one was alone and in a different locality.

Where, on a trial for crime, the confession of a defendant is offered in evidence, the question of whether it was voluntary is in the first instance for the trial justice; but after its admission the jury may disregard it if they are of the opinion that it was not voluntary. When the confessions were offered by the state in the instant case, the trial justice heard testimony in the absence of the jury to determine whether or not such confessions were voluntarily made. In this inquiry the defendants not only cross-examined the state's witnesses at great length but they themselves also testified freely as to the happenings preceding the taking and signing of the confessions. The defendants in substance contended that the statements, which the state termed confessions, were the creations solely of the police, and that such statements were signed and sworn to by them as a result of promises, threats and physical violence.

Upon consideration of all the pertinent evidence then before him, the trial justice was of the opinion that the written statements, signed and sworn to by the defendants, were voluntarily made by them and he admitted such statements as their respective confessions. We find no sufficient reason for differing with his conclusion. State v. Jacques, 30 R.I. 578, 76 A. 652.

In conformity with the view expressed by this court in State v. Mariano, 37 R.I. 168, at page 187, 91 A. 21, the trial justice in his charge, to which no exception was taken by the defendants, fully and carefully instructed the jury to determine for themselves whether the confessions were voluntary or the result of promises, threats or force, and that if the latter were the case they should reject any confession secured by such means, ‘even though you believe it to be true.’ By their verdict of guilty the jury showed that they believed the confessions to be voluntary, and here again we find no sufficient reason for differing with their conclusion.

Under contention (2) the defendants now argue that the state had not proved the corpus delicti when the confessions were admitted in evidence. They contend that in the absence of independent proof of the crime charged the confession alone by one accused of that crime is insufficient to prove the corpus delicti; and, therefore, a conviction based solely on the confession cannot be sustained. We agree with that principle of law. The corpus delicti cannot be presumed. A defendant is not required to answer for the alleged commission of a crime in the absence of evidence, direct or circumstantial, sufficient to establish the corpus delicti, which expression, according to well-established law, means the body of the crime, that is, the mere commission of a crime irrespective of who may have committed it.

In the instant case the defendants, conceding that there may be evidence of the commission of the crime charged, contend that the corpus delicti includes both the body of the crime and defendants'...