State v. Exum
| Decision Date | 02 February 1938 |
| Docket Number | 218. |
| Citation | 195 S.E. 7,213 N.C. 16 |
| Parties | STATE v. EXUM. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, Wayne County; Henry A. Grady, Judge.
Milford Exum was convicted of first degree murder, and he appeals.
No error.
At May term, 1937, of the superior court of Wayne county, the defendant, Milford Exum, and Earl Sasser were indicted, each by a separate indictment, for the murder, in Wayne county, N C., on April 2, 1937, of James Williams.
At August term, 1937, of said court the defendant Milford Exum and the said Earl Sasser were each duly arraigned on said separate indictments. Each entered a plea of not guilty. Without objection, and in its discretion, the court ordered that said separate indictments be consolidated for trial. The defendant, Milford Exum, and the said Earl Sasser were thereupon tried on said consolidated indictments for the murder, in Wayne county, N. C., on April 2, 1937, of James Williams.
There was a verdict that both the defendant, Milford Exum, and the said Earl Sasser are guilty of murder in the first degree.
On motion of Earl Sasser, the verdict as to him was set aside by the court. Thereafter, the said Earl Sasser tendered to the court a plea of guilty as an accessory before the fact to murder in the first degree. C.S. § 4175. With the approval of the solicitor for the State, this plea was accepted by the court. The said Earl Sasser did not appeal from the judgment on his plea that he be confined in the State's Prison for his life, as required by statute. C.S. § 4176.
The motion of the defendant, Milford Exum, that the verdict as to him be set aside and that he be granted a new trial was denied by the court.
From judgment on the verdict, as required by statute, C.S. § 4200 that he suffer death by means of asphyxiation, as provided by statute, C.S. § 4658, as amended, see N.C.Code of 1935, § 4658, the defendant, Milford Exum, appealed to the Supreme Court, assigning errors in the trial and judgment.
A. A. F. Seawell, Atty. Gen., and Harry McMullan, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Paul D. Grady, of Kenly, and Paul B. Edmundson and Hugh Dortch, both of Goldsboro, for defendant.
On or about April 2, 1937, Paul Garrison, sheriff of Wayne county, was informed at his office in the city of Goldsboro, N. C., that James Williams, and elderly colored man, who lived alone at his home in Wayne county, some distance from the city of Goldsboro, had not been seen at his home or in the neighborhood for several days, and that apprehension was felt by his neighbors as to his whereabouts. In consequence of this information, the sheriff went at once to the home of James Williams. He found that the door of the house in which James Williams lived was locked, and that there was no one in the house. He entered the house and found that the bedclothes had been dragged from the bed in the room which James Williams occupied as his bedroom. They were on the floor of the room. The furniture in the room was broken, and scattered about the room. Papers were scattered on the floor. On the floor and under the bedclothes there was a considerable amount of dried blood. Two empty pistol cartridges were found on the floor in the room. Both cartridges were .25 caliber cartridges, such as are used in an automatic pistol. The condition of the room showed that some one, after a fierce struggle, had been shot and wounded in the room. The sheriff closed the house, and with his deputies searched the premises and the surrounding woods for James Williams. He was not found. After the search, the sheriff returned to the city of Goldsboro, but continued his investigation to ascertain the whereabouts of James Williams.
About two weeks after James Williams had disappeared from his home in Wayne county, his dead body was found in Little river, in Johnston county, about eight miles from his home. When the body was taken from the river, it was wrapped in a sheet. A heavy iron bar was tied to the body with a rope. The body was taken to an undertaker's place of business in Goldsboro where an examination disclosed wounds on the head and near the spinal column. Two bullets were taken from the head, and one from the body. These bullets were from .25 caliber cartridges which had been fired from an automatic pistol. The wounds caused by these bullets caused the death of James Williams.
After the body of James Williams was found in Little river, in consequence of information disclosed by his investigations, the sheriff of Wayne county went to the home of the defendant, Milford Exum, which is a short distance from the home of James Williams, and there arrested the defendant, Milford Exum, Earl Sasser, and Tinker Holland, three young white men, and charged them with the murder of James Williams. He did not procure a warrant for these men, but took them to Goldsboro, where they were held in custody pending further investigation by the sheriff. The next day after his arrest, the defendant, Milford Exum, was taken by the sheriff to Snow Hill, in Green county, where he was placed in jail.
While the defendant was confined in jail at Snow Hill, his relatives and friends employed counsel for him, and inquired of the sheriff where the defendant was confined. The sheriff declined to give them any information as to where the defendant was confined, but told them that the defendant was in his custody. He refused to permit counsel employed by relatives and friends of the defendant, in his behalf, to confer with the defendant or to see him, until after a writ of habeas corpus had been served on him by the coroner of Wayne county. The writ of habeas corpus was issued on the application of counsel employed by relatives and friends of the defendant.
After the defendant had been placed in jail at Snow Hill, and while he was confined in said jail, the sheriff and his deputies visited him on several occasions. They told him the results of their investigation of the death of James Williams and that said investigations had disclosed facts which indicated that the defendant had information as to circumstances under which the homicide was committed. They urged the defendant to tell them what, if anything, he knew about the homicide. After he had been confined in the jail at Snow Hill for several days, the defendant told the sheriff that if he would take him from the jail to his home in Wayne county, where he could see and confer with relatives and friends, he would tell all he knew about the homicide. This the sheriff agreed to do.
Accordingly the sheriff took the defendant from the jail in Snow Hill, and carried him in his automobile to his home in Wayne county. The sheriff and his deputies, who were in the automobile with the defendant, each testified that while on the trip the defendant made statements to them, and in their presence, with respect to the homicide.
Counsel for defendant, in apt time, objected to any testimony by the sheriff or by his deputies as to any statement made to them or to either of them, or in their presence, by the defendant with respect to the homicide, on the ground, first, that no statement in the nature of a confession made by the defendant, while he was in the custody of the sheriff, was admissible as evidence against him, because such statement was involuntary on the part of the defendant, and, second, that no statement in the nature of a confession, made by the defendant, while he was in the custody of the sheriff, was admissible as evidence against him, because such statement was made by the defendant while he was held in custody by the sheriff in violation of chapter 257, Public Laws of North Carolina, 1937.
The objections of the defendant to testimony of the sheriff and his deputies, tending to show that the defendant made statements to them in the nature of confessions, were overruled by the court, and the defendant duly excepted.
The sheriff and certain of his deputies thereupon testified that while he was on the trip with them, in the sheriff's automobile, from Snow Hill to his home in Wayne county, the defendant told them...
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