State v. Drake

• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: ASHE
• Citation: State v. Drake, 82 N.C. 592 (N.C. 1880)
• Decision Date: 31 January 1880
• Parties: STATE v. ANDERSON DRAKE.

82 N.C. 592

STATE

v.ANDERSON DRAKE.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

January Term, 1880.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

INDICTMENT for Burglary tried at Fall Term, 1879, of McDOWELL Superior Court, before Schenck, J.

The prisoner was serving out a term of imprisonment at hard labor imposed upon his previous conviction for a criminal offence, and had been sent with other convicts to work on the Western North Carolina railroad. He escaped from the stockade in which the convicts were kept at night, and committed the alleged burglary. Judgment was pronounced upon a verdict of guilty and the prisoner appealed.

Attorney General, for the State .

Messrs. D. G. Fowle and W. W. Wilson, for prisoner .

ASHE, J.

There were several exceptions taken to the ruling of His Honor in the course of the trial, only one of which is necessary to be considered in the view we take of the case. It was in evidence that the dwelling house of D. A. C. Salsbury, near Old Fort, had been broken open on the night of the fifteenth of June, 1879, and robbed. On the trial it was proposed by the state to prove the confessions of the prisoner, which was objected to by the prisoner's counsel. In order to determine the admissibility of the evidence the jury were required to retire while the court heard the evidence touching the character of the confessions. One Hallyburton was then introduced as a witness by the prisoner, who testified that on Monday after Friday when the alleged burglary occurred, he with others went to a negro house in Morganton to arrest the prisoner; that the prisoner in coming to the door was told, “You are our prisoner”; that the prisoner slammed a door and jumped out of a window and fled; that some ten or twelve shots were fired at him, but none of them took effect, and that he was overtaken and captured without further resistance; that when overtaken he was asked, “are you the negro that broke into Salsbury's house,” and he answered, ““Yes.” He was then put in jail until noon, the capture being early in the morning; and in the evening, Hallyburton put a hand cuff on him and fastened the cuff to a seat in the car, and carried him to the stockade. That no promises were made to the prisoner nor any inducements offered him to confess, and that no threats were made to him at any time, nor any conversation had with him on the way to the stockade. The prosecutor, Salsbury, then testified that on the next day he and one Crawford went to the stockade and asked to have an interview with the prisoner, when Mr. Troy, the superintendent of convicts at that point, sent for the prisoner and he came to the stockade fettered with his stockade shackles. Mr. Troy said, “Anderson, Mr. Salsbury wishes to interview you; sit down.” The prisoner sat down and Mr. Salsbury asked, “What did you do with my overcoat.” The prisoner's counsel here objected to the testimony, but the jury were ordered by His Honor to be recalled into the court house, and the objection of the prisoner being overruled, the witness Salisbury was then allowed to proceed with his testimony to the jury, which was to the effect that prisoner told him in reply to his interrogatory, that he had traded his overcoat to one Grier, and then related how he had prized open the window with an axe, and took the overcoat and vest, and had then gone up stairs and entered the back chamber and stolen the pants and then went down stairs, unlocked the back door and left.

We are of the opinion the confessions of the prisoner should not have been...