State v. Drake
| Decision Date | 31 October 1893 |
| Citation | 18 S.E. 166,113 N.C. 624 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE . v. DRAKE. |
Criminal Law—Confession.
Where an officer holds out a hope to a prisoner, whom he is taking before the examining magistrate, that a confession may lighten the punishment, and the magistrate, after committing the prisoner, admonishes him to tell the truth, if he tells anything, a confession made by the prisoner while being conveyed from the magistrate's office to the jail by the same officer is inadmissible in evidence, though no inducement was then held out to him, in the absence of any showing that the influence previously exerted had been removed.
Appeal from superior court, Wilson county; Shuford, Judge.
Will Drake was convicted of burglary, and appeals. Reversed.
Aycock & Daniels, for appellant.
The Attorney General, for the State.
BURWELL, J. "Thus much is certain: That no confession by the prisoner is admissible, which is made in consequence of any inducement of a temporal nature, having reference to the charge against the prisoner, held out by a person in authority." 1 Rose. Grim. Ev. p. 42. A witness for the state testified that while he was conveying the prisoner from the place where he and others had arrested him, to Elm City, where he was taken before a justice, he said to the prisoner, then in his charge: It seems to be conceded that this remark of the acting officer to his prisoner held out to him such an inducement to confess, that, if a confession had then been made to the officer, immediately, in response to the suggestion, such confession would have been clearly inadmissible. There was in what was then said to the prisoner a hope held out to him that a confession would make his punishment the lighter, and confessions thus induced by hope "are, of all kinds of evidence, the least to be relied on, and are therefore to be entirely rejected." State v. Roberts, 1 Dev. 259. But no confession came from the lips of the prisoner in answer to this advice tendered to him by his keeper, but, in its stead, an assertion of his innocence. "He said, 1 am not guilty, '" are the words of the witness. Omitting, now, any recital of what occurred during the day of this occurrence, except that the prisoner was carried before themagistrate, and was committed to jail upon evidence adduced at the examination, we find it stated in the case that his honor, over the defendant's objection, allowed this same witness to testify to a confession made to him by the prisoner while he was conveying him from the justice's office to the jail. There was no evidence of any withdrawal by the acting officer of the inducement to confess that he had held out to the prisoner while on the way to the magistrate's office, and we now consider the admissibility of this confession as if no other inducement had been used. Viewing the matter in this way, we think there was error in admitting this confession, for the law, always most...
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State v. Crank
...the accused: 'I believe you are guilty. If you are, you had better say so. If you are not, you had better say that.' In State v. Drake (1893) 113 N.C. 624, 18 S.E. 166, saying to the prisoner: 'If you are guilty, I advise you to make an honest confession. It might be easier for you. It is p......
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State v. Moore
...should likewise have been excluded upon the presumption that it, too, had been made under the same influence or inducement. State v. Drake, 113 N.C. 624, 18 S.E. 166. confession made to the sheriff is alleged to have been induced by the promise that, if the defendant would tell him the trut......
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State v. Anderson
... ... are disposed to disregard form for merit and to hold that the ... alleged confession should have been stricken out. State ... v. Livingston, 202 N.C. 809, 164 S.E. 337; State v ... Grier, 203 N.C. 586, 166 S.E. 595; State v ... Davis, 125 N.C. 612, 34 S.E. 198; State v ... Drake, 113 N.C. 624, 18 S.E. 166; State v ... Dildy, 72 N.C. 325; State v. Whitfield, 70 N.C ... A free ... and voluntary confession is deserving of the highest credit, ... because it is presumed to flow from the strongest sense of ... guilt, but a confession wrung from the ... ...
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Bram v. United States, 340
...the accused: 'I believe you are guilty. If you are, you had better say so. If you are not, you had better say that.' In State v. Drake (1893) 113 N. C. 624, 18 S. E. 166, saying to the prisoner: 'If you are guilty, I would advise you to make an honest confession. It might be easier for you.......