State v. Brown

• Citation: 47 S.E.2d 521
• Decision Date: 14 April 1948
• Docket Number: No. 16067.,16067.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of South Carolina
• Parties: STATE. v. BROWN.

47 S.E.2d 521

STATE.
v.
BROWN.

No. 16067.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

April 14, 1948.

[47 S.E.2d 522]

Appeal from General Sessions Circuit Court of Kershaw County; E. H. Henderson, Judge.

John Brown was convicted of manslaughter, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Murchison & West, of Camden, and Allen M. Sapp, of Columbia, for appellant.

T. P. Taylor, Sol., of Columbia, for respondent.

OXNER, Justice.

Appellant, John Brown, was jointly indicted with Russell Brown, Isaac Hill and R. B. Bennett, for the murder of Edward Speights. The last three named defendants were also charged with being accessories before and after the fact. The case was tried at the February, 1947, term of the Court of General Sessions of Kershaw County. At the conclusion of the State's testimony, the trial judge granted a motion for a directed verdict as to Russell Brown, Isaac Hill and R. B. Bennett. He refused a similar motion in behalf of appellant who was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to imprisonment for a term of twelve years.

The State relied almost entirely on alleged confessions by the defendants to sustain the charges in the indictment. The trial Judge held, and it is conceded, that the evidence apart from the alleged confessions of appellant was insufficient to warrant his conviction. The questions to be determined on this appeal are stated in appellant's brief as follows:

"I. Did the admission in evidence of certain statements purporting to be confessions of appellant's co-defendants constitute error?

"II. Did the evidence show as a matter of law that the purported confession of the appellant was involuntary, therefore inadmissible?

"III. Did the treatment accorded appellant amount to such a denial of due process of law as to render his purported confession inadmissible?"

Appellant and Russell Brown are brothers. The deceased Edward Speights, was a brother of appellant's wife. Shortly after midnight on Sunday, August 25, 1946, a passing motorist observed a man lying on U. S. Highway No. 1 about three miles north of Blaney. A highway patrolman was notified and, along with the coroner of Kershaw County, immediately commenced an investigation. Between 1:30 and 2:00 a. m. they found Edward Speights lying across the pavement on the right side of the road in traveling toward Camden with his head near the center of the highway. There was a small amount of blood on the pavement near a cut on one of his hands. The highway patrolman and coroner took him to the hospital at Camden and immediately returned to the scene for the purpose of continuing the investigation. All of the defendants, as well as Speights and his parents, lived in this vicinity. A number of Negroes, including several of the defendants, were interrogated. They found appellant at a nearby tobacco barn about 3:00 a. m. where he and some other Negroes were curing tobacco. It developed during this investigation that Speights had been driving appellant's car during the previous afternoon and the early part of that night. The car was found that morning lying in a ditch along the highway at Blaney. The officers became suspicious of Russell Brown and Isaac Hill and some time that Sunday afternoon placed them in the county jail at Camden where they were held for investigation. These defendants, as well as all the other Negroes interviewed, denied any knowledge of the occurrence.

Speights never regained consciousness after being carried to the hospital. He died on the morning of August 27, 1946, or a little more than 48 hours after he was found on the highway. The physician who performed the autopsy testified that the only external evidence of injury which he found was an incised wound about a half-inch long on the thumb of the left hand, a small cut on the third finger of the right hand and a bruised area about half an inch in diameter beneath the right eye, all of which were of a superficial nature. The autopsy, however, revealed a bruised place inside of the scalp. This physician was of the opinion that Speights died from the result of a blow on the head by some blunt instrument and that the injury which caused his death could

[47 S.E.2d 523]

not have resulted from an automobile striking him or from an automobile accident.

Appellant was arrested without a warrant around noon on September 10, 1946, and carried by the officers to Columbia where he was turned over to the police authorities and placed in the city jail. These officers testified that the county jail at Camden was so constructed that if appellant had been placed there, any interrogation of him could have been easily overheard by Isaac Hill and Russell Brown, and that it was necessary to detain appellant at a place where he could be examined without the knowledge of the two defendants mentioned. According to the State's evidence, appellant remained in the jail at Columbia without being interrogated until about 10 o'clock the next morning, at which time Deputy Sheriff McLeod and another deputy sheriff of Kershaw County, who had driven over from Camden, proceeded to...