State v. Lowhorne

• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: BOYDEN
• Citation: State v. Lowhorne, 66 N.C. 638 (N.C. 1872)
• Decision Date: 31 January 1872
• Parties: STATE v. JOEL LOWHORNE,

66 N.C. 638

STATE

v.JOEL LOWHORNE,

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

January Term, 1872.

1. The admissions of guilt of one who had, prior to making such admissions, been induced by fear or the hope of benefit, to confess himself guilty of a criminal charge, cannot be used against him, unless it be shown by the most irrefragible evidence, that the motives which induced the first confession had ceased to operate.

2. Hence, when a party had been pursuaded to make a confession of guilt, through a promise of immunity from prosecution therefor; Held, that in the absence of clear proof that such inducement had ceased to operate, his confessions touching the same offence, thereafter made, were inadmissible.

The cases of State v. Roberts, 1 Dev. 259, and State v. Lawson, Phil. L., 47 cited and approved.

This was an indictment for robbery, tried before His Honor Judge Watts, at Fall Term, 1871, of the Superior Court of Johnston county.

On the trial the State proposed to introduce in evidence the confessions of the prisoner made during Fall Term, 1870, to one Porter.

The defendant objected and offered to show that previously to that time the prisoner had been induced to make confessions in consequence of a promise to him not to be prosecuted for the offence, if he did.

His Honor being of opinion that, assuming such to be the case, it would not have the legal effect to exclude the evidence of subsequent confessions, admitted the evidence proposed by the State.

The defendant excepted. There was a verdict of guilty, and, after sentence, the prisoner appealed.

The Attorney General for the State .

Busbee & Busbee for the prisoner .

BOYDEN, J.

In this case the only question for our decision is as to the admissability of the confessions of the defendant.

The case as made is somewhat obscurely stated; but we take it that the defendant had first been induced to confess under the confident belief that if he did confess he would not be prosecuted. And this being so, the question is, whether a subsequent statement of the facts of the case, made secretly to the witness was admissible. There being no evidence to show that the same motives that induced the defendant to make the first statement, were not still the operative motives to the subsequent statement. In the case of State v. Roberts, 1 Dev., 259, Henderson, Judge, says, “confessions induced by hope, or extorted by fear, are, of all kinds of evidence the least to be relied on, and are, therefore,...