State v. Grier
| Decision Date | 30 November 1932 |
| Docket Number | 456. |
| Parties | STATE v. GRIER. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, Gaston County; Finley, Judge.
Alex Grier was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals.
No error.
In prosecution for murder, confession of accused made in presence of officers held voluntary, under circumstances shown, and therefore properly admitted.
Alex Grier, the prisoner, and Clyde Smith were indicted for the murder of Harold Carter. Grier was convicted of murder in the first degree and was sentenced to death. Smith was convicted of murder in the second degree. Grier alone appealed.
The deceased operated a filling station about four miles from Gastonia. On Sunday, May 1, 1932, early in the morning he was found behind the stove in the filling station, lying in a pool of blood, unconscious. Three oil bottles had been broken, and the fragments were on the floor, together with a hand axe. He had lost considerable blood, and his head was fractured in numerous places. He was carried to the hospital and died without regaining consciousness.
After his arrest Grier made a confession implicating Smith as the one who had done the actual killing, while Grier waited at the door with a pistol. Smith likewise made a statement. At the trial both testified in their own behalf, and each denied participation in the crime.
J. A Wilkins, of Gastonia, for appellant.
Dennis G. Brummitt, Atty. Gen., and A. A. F. Seawell, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.
It is suggested in the brief of the Attorney General that the transcript is imperfect; but as the prisoner has been convicted of a capital felony and no motion has been made to dismiss the appeal, the exceptions entered of record will be duly considered. The principal assignment of error is the admission of evidence relating to the alleged confession of the prisoner and of a statement said to have been made by his codefendant, Clyde Smith.
The state first offered to prove the prisoner's confession by John Hord, a policeman, but his testimony was excluded for the reason that the prisoner had not been told that any statement he made could be introduced on the trial as evidence against him. Subsequently the solicitor of the district advised him "that any statement he might make would be used against him," that "he did not have to make a statement unless he so desired," and that "nothing was being offered him to make such statement." The prisoner then signed a statement of the circumstances attending the homicide, which had been reduced to writing by the court stenographer. In a lengthy statement the minute intricacies of which need not be given, the prisoner said that he and Smith planned the homicide and that Smith killed the deceased while he remained outside the station holding the pistol: "I was watching while he killed the fellow and got the money." The stenographer was permitted, as a witness for the state, to read to the jury the prisoner's signed statement, and John Hord testified as to the confession made by the prisoner after he had been advised of his rights. Exception was taken to Hord's testimony and to the admission of the written statement.
The prisoner while in jail was examined, or "in one sense of the word cross-examined," by some of the officers, and after saying that he had nothing to do with the homicide finally made a confession; but this evidence, heard by the court in the absence of the jury, was excluded. Afterwards before the same officers he made the statement taken by the stenographer, which he said was "of his own free will." The statement was not induced by hope or fear or any other proffered advantage, but it is contended that the circumstances make it doubtful whether the prisoner felt at liberty to depart from the former admission of his participation in the crime, and that if the first confession was improperly brought about this infirmity attached to the later statement.
It was shown affirmatively that the prisoner's first confession was not induced by hope or fear. His statement was excluded apparently for the reason that the prisoner had not been advised that he was not compelled to answer, and upon this theory he insists that the second confession is not admissible because there is no evidence that the motives inducing the first confession were not operative in the subsequent statement. State v. Roberts, 12 N.C. 259; State v. Lowhorne, 66 N.C. 638; State v Fox, 197 N.C. 478, 149 S.E. 735. This argument raises the question whether a confession of crime must be rejected unless it...
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