State v. Cannon, 19642
| Decision Date | 20 June 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 19642,19642 |
| Citation | 260 S.C. 537,197 S.E.2d 678 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | The STATE, Respondent, v. John Hall CANNON, Appellant. |
Henry W. Kirkland, Kirkland, Aaron & Alley, and Theordore W. Law, Jr., Columbia, for appellant.
Solicitor John Foard and James L. Felder, Columbia, for respondent.
The defendant, John Hall Cannon, was tried by a jury and found guilty of murdering his four-year-old half-brother, Edward Holbrook Wyman, Jr. He has appealed, alleging that the judge committed error in admitting his confession into evidence; in ruling that the State's medical witness was qualified to testify as an expert as to the defendant's sanity; and in charging the M'Naghten rule to the jury as a test for determining legal sanity.
The defendant is eighteen years old and lived with his grandmother at Conway. His father, O'Neil Cannon, also resided at Conway. His mother, who was divorced from the defendant's father, lived about 125 miles from Conway in Columbia and was married to Edward Holbrook Wyman. On Friday morning, November 26, 1971. the maid employed by the Wymans found the dead bodies of the defendant's mother, the defendant's step-father, and the defendant's half-brother. All had died of pistol-shot wounds. Young Edward was found dead in the lap of his deceased father in a chair in the den; the body of defendant's mother was found on the floor in the bathroom; apparently they died Wednesday night. The matter was reported to police authorities and an intense investigation was begun.
We treat first the first question raised by the appellant, which, as copied from his brief, reads as follows:
'Did the court err in admitting into evidence defendant's confession since the confession had been obtained by subterfuge and the use of unlawful pressure in violation of his rights under the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States?'
A summary of the circumstances surrounding the defendant's arrest and subsequent interrogation is necessary to a disposition of this question. He was arrested shortly after attending the funeral of his mother on the 29th day of November. The arrest was made on a highway leading from the funeral area by two officers of the Richland County Sheriff's Department. They took him to the headquarters of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), arriving at about 5:45 in the afternoon. He was interrogated for a short period of time by police officers, Lt. Wyndham, Lt. Faulk, Capt. LaVerne, Capt. Gasque, and Sheriff Powell. The record fairly indicates that the questioning was conducted in a temperate manner. The defendant was then taken into the office of Lt. Faulk for about twenty minutes. The record is not complete, but the defendant was examined by the use of a polygraph machine. The defendant continued to deny his guilt during these sessions. After about twenty minutes, Lt. Faulk left the office and Lt. Wyndham and Capt. Gasque entered to continue questioning the defendant. It was during this twenty minute session that the defendant first gave a statement indicating that he had committed the fatal shooting. Subsequently, Sheriff Powell and Capt. LaVerne talked to the defendant for about fifteen to twenty minutes and he again made statements amounting to a confession.
Thereafter, the defendant was taken to an outer office where his statement was reduced to writing and subsequently typed by a secretary. As the defendant once more repeated his confession for transcribing, there were four police officers present. The process of receiving his statement, typing and signing it, took approximately an hour and a half. Total time spent at SLED Headquarters was approximately five and one-half hours, ending about 10:15 in the evening. The signed statement included the following:
The confession was somewhat detailed and need not be repeated verbatim. In it, he stated that he had bought a pistol in Conway and had practiced target shooting with it. He drove to Columbia on Wednesday November 24, 1971, and went to the home of the now-deceased trio. He admitted shooting his four-year-old half-brother (as well as his mother and step-father) and then drove to Conway. The next morning, he carried the .22 pistol, which he had used to do the shooting, and threw it into a sewage lagoon behind the Conway Mall on Highway U.S. 501. Later, officers recovered the pistol from the lagoon and it was identified as being one purchased by the defendant in Conway.
The defendant does not question the timeliness of a Miranda warning, but does challenge the sufficiency of such and the adequacy of the waiver of rights as described in Miranda. The evidence indicates that the following warning was in essence given to the defendant at the time of arrest and at least three other times throughout the interrogation by different officers:
'You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law; you have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him present with you while you are being questioned; if you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed to represent you before any questioning if you wish one.'
Defendant contends that the initial warnings were insufficient and incomplete; he argues they should have included, as did the warning included in the typed statement, in effect the following:
'If you decide to answer any questions now without a lawyer present, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time or until you talk to a lawyer.'
We do not agree that Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 486, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), required the inclusion of the above when informing a person of his rights. We cite three cases holding such: State v. Jones, 293 Minn. 443, 196 N.W.2d 606 (1972); Flannagin v. State, 289 Ala. 177, 266 So.2d 643 (1972); Watts v. State, 48 Ala.App. 143, 262 So.2d 630 (1972), and specifically point with approval to the reasoning of the Flannagin case. See also 3 Wigmore, Evidence, § 826 (Chadbourn Rev. 1970).
The defendant also submits that even if the warnings be deemed sufficient, he did not freely, voluntarily and knowingly waive his rights. The trial judge held an out-of-the-presence-of-the-jury hearing in which the State and the defendant were permitted to meet this issue. Among those testifying was the defendant himself. He admitted that the statement was basically correct. After hearing the testimony, the trial judge said, prior to admitting the confession into evidence:
Notwithstanding the Miranda court's effort to particularize and to prescribe specifics for valid waivers, in resolving issues of waiver vel non, courts must make inquiries concerning the totality of circumstances. It is clear that the totality of the circumstances surrounding the admission of the confession was explored by the trial judge. Both the State and the defendant were permitted to introduce evidence out of the presence of the jury to their own satisfaction. Every case must be decided on its own merits, based on the totality of the circumstances.
The record fairly indicates that not only the initial questioning, but all of the interrogation was...
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State v. Parker
...of waiving Miranda rights); State v. Doby, 273 S.C. 704, 709, 258 S.E.2d 896, 899 (1979) (mental capacity); State v. Cannon, 260 S.C. 537, 544, 197 S.E.2d 678, 680-81 (1973) (age, education level, manner of police Parker contends his confession was involuntary based on the following circums......
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State v. Pittman
...at 666; Davenport v. State, 301 S.C. 39, 389 S.E.2d 649 (1990); State v. Law, 270 S.C. 664, 244 S.E.2d 302 (1978); State v. Cannon, 260 S.C. 537, 197 S.E.2d 678 (1973). At trial, Appellant's counsel expressed concerns about the charge to be given to the jury regarding involuntary intoxicati......
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Slater v. Cartledge
...a person of his rights, specifically inform a person that he has the right to stop the questioning at any time. State v. Cannon, 260 S.C. 537, 197 S.E.2d 678 (1973); Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602 (1966). Further, even if the first set of Miranda warnings had been incomplet......
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People v. Cummings, 85SA39
...342 N.E.2d 844 (1976); Johnson v. State, 31 Md.App. 303, 355 A.2d 504 (1976); Lee v. State, 338 So.2d 395 (Miss.1976); State v. Cannon, 260 S.C. 537, 197 S.E.2d 678, cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1067, 94 S.Ct. 576, 38 L.Ed.2d 472 (1973); State ex rel. Weston v. Henderson, 220 Tenn. 1, 413 S.W.2d ......