State v. Holden

• Decision Date: 14 January 1890
• Citation: 42 Minn. 350,44 N.W. 123
• Parties: STATE v HOLDEN.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

42 Minn. 350

44 N.W. 123

STATEvHOLDEN.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Jan. 14, 1890.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. It is for the court to decide, in a criminal trial, whether alleged confessions have been made under such circumstances as to be properly receivable in evidence against the defendant; and its decision is to be sustained, unless manifestly against the weight of the evidence.¹State v. Staley, 14 Minn. 105, (Gil. 75,) followed.

2. The inducements to the making of confessions, which should exclude proof of such confessions, must have come from one in authority, or must have been presented under circumstances likely to lead the defendant to suppose that they were sanctioned by a person in authority.¹

3. Evidence considered as justifying the decision of the trial court receiving in evidence proof of inculpatory and contradictory statements made by the defendant.

4. Testimony of witnesses, that certain statements of the defendant were voluntarily made, considered, in connection with other evidence, as not being the expression of an opinion, but the statement of the fact that no inducements were presented leading to the making of the statements.

5. A witness who had seen the dead body of the deceased gave testimony tending to show that he had seen the same man alive subsequent to the time when, according to the theory of the state, he had been killed by the defendant. He identified a photograph of a brother of the deceased as resembling the man he saw. Held, that there was no apparent error in receiving in evidence a true photograph of the deceased.

6. At the close of the evidence, and before the court had charged the jury, six of the jurors sent a request to the counsel for the state and for the defendant that the cause be submitted to the jury without argument, and this was done. Held to be no ground for a new trial.

7. The general charge of the court held to be sufficient to cover a particular request for instruction as to the duty of the jury, if any fact inconsistent with the defendant's guilt had been established.

8. Evidence considered sufficient to justify the verdict.

Appeal from district court, Redwood county; WEBBER, Judge.

Chas. C. Willson, for appellant.

Moses E. Clapp, Atty. Gen., H. W. Childs, Asst. Atty. Gen., and M. M. Madigan, Co. Atty., for the State.

DICKINSON, J.

The defendant was convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree. This is an appeal from an order refusing a new trial.

At about 7 o'clock in the evening of Friday, November 23, 1888, the defendant and the deceased, Frank Dodge, left the village of Morton, to drive in a buggy to the village of Redwood Falls, a distance of seven miles. At a later hour of the same evening the defendant came, with the team, to an hotel in Redwood Falls, where he remained that night. At an early hour the following morning the dead body of Dodge was found lying at the side of a street in Redwood Falls. He had been shot; the ball having entered the head on the back side, and passed through the brain. Saturday evening, the 24th of November, the defendant was arrested for the homicide, and imprisoned in a room used for the purposes of a jail. On that same day, prior to his arrest, the defendant made a statement under oath, at a coroner's inquest, stating, in substance, among other things, that as he and Dodge drove into the village of Redwood Falls, the evening before, Dodge, observing a man in the street, said, “There is the party I want to spot,” and, getting out of the buggy, went with the man referred to; that, later in the evening, the defendant again saw Dodge in a street of the village, in company with a man whose appearance and dress he particularly described; that Dodge said to the defendant that he had some special business to transact with that gentleman, but would soon come to the hotel. The defendant then returned to the hotel, and went to bed for the night. He had previously, on the same day, made a similar statement, but, according to the evidence, not embracing exactly the same statement of facts. On the following Monday, November 26, to which time the coroner's inquest was adjourned, the defendant again made a statement, which, having been reduced to writing, and signed by him, was received in evidence, against the objection of the defendant. This account was wholly different from that previously given. The following summary of a part of it will be sufficient for an understanding of the questions to be decided: According to this account, the deceased, in conversation with the defendant, had shown that his mind was affected with despondency and suspicion concerning a young lady to whom he was engaged to be married. While riding to Redwood Falls the deceased conversed upon that subject. When they had come within a little more than a mile of the village, the deceased asked for the defendant's pistol, ostensibly to shoot a dog which had followed the team from Morton. Taking the pistol, Dodge then shot himself. The defendant drove on, with the dead body, into the village, and placed it at the side of the street, where, on the following morning, it was found. The particular circumstances upon which the defendant's objections to this statement being given in evidence were principally based will be now stated. On Sunday, the day before the making of this statement, one Warner, with the consent, and perhaps at the instance, of the sheriff and county attorney, visited the defendant several times in the place of his confinement, for the purpose of obtaining from him whatever facts he could relative to the homicide. According to Warner's testimony, he told the defendant that “the best way for him to do, if he had any connection with the matter, was to tell the truth about it.” He said: “You have made two or three contradictory statements. You don't want to do that. You had better tell the truth about it.” Warner also gave him a small drink of whisky. After this, in the evening of that day, when the sheriff and county attorney were present, the defendant gave an account of the transaction, similar to that made on the following day, to which we have already referred.

In passing upon the legal question arising upon the objection to the receiving in evidence of the statement made on Monday, it is to be assumed that if any improper influence was exerted upon the defendant the preceding day, of such a nature as would have rendered inadmissible any statement then made by him, it would have also had the same effect as to the statement made on Monday, unless the circumstances were such as to show that the improper influence had been dispelled. We also assume, in accordance with the contention of the defendant's counsel, without so deciding, that the admissibility of the statement in question, the suicide account, is governed by the rule which excludes proof of confessions of guilt, when made under the influence of inducements to confess exerted by persons in authority. Even applying that rule to this case, it is considered that the decision of the trial court admitting proof of the statement made by the defendant on Monday should be sustained. It is to be borne in mind that it is for the court alone to decide as to the admissibility of the proof of confessions, and that his decision should not be set aside, unless it is manifestly against the weight of the evidence bearing upon the point. State v. Staley, 14 Minn. 105, (Gil. 75.)

It is well settled, as a general rule, to which there may be exceptions, as in the case of young persons of immature minds, that inducements of advantage or of harm presented to the mind of the accused, in order to have the effect to exclude proof of his confessions, must have come from a person in authority,—as that word has come to be understood in this connection, —or must have been presented under such circumstances as to be likely to lead the accused to suppose that they were made with the sanction of a person in authority. State v. Staley, supra; Reg. v. Moore, 2 Denison, Cr. Cas. 522; Reg. v. Taylor, 8 Car. & P. 733; Rosc. Crim. Ev. 46; Steph. Dig. Ev. pt. 1, c. 4, art. 22; Whart. Crim. Ev. § 651; and see extended note upon “Confessions,” with numerous citations, in 3 Amer. & Eng. Cyclop. Law, 456. The case here presented justified the conclusion of the trial judge that the...