State v. Sanders

• Decision Date: 31 January 1881
• Citation: 84 N.C. 728
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. WARREN SANDERS.

84 N.C. 728

STATE

v.WARREN SANDERS.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

January Term, 1881.

INDICTMENT for larceny tried at Fall Term, 1880, of WAKE Superior Court, before Graves, J.

Verdict of guilty, judgment, appeal by defendant.

Attorney General, for the State .

Messrs. Mason & Devereux, for defendant .

DILLARD, J.

The defendant was charged in the bill of indictment with the larceny of divers articles, and among them a vest, and on the trial, he took two exceptions, one to the admission in evidence of a certain confession to Dr. Leach, and the other to the charge of the judge to the jury, and these constitute the only points for the determination of this court.

The state having offered evidence tending to show the larceny, and that, in a few days thereafter, the goods were found in an outhouse on the plantation of Dr. Leach, in Johnston county, on which the defendant was living as his hireling, and also tending to show that defendant very shortly after the larceny had sold the vest mentioned in the bill of indictment to a fellow-servant, then proposed to show by Dr. Leach the account given by the defendant on the night of his arrest as to how he came by the vest. The defendant objected on the gronnd that his declaration or admission had been procured by duress and the court having admitted the evidence, the defendant excepted. Verdict of guilty, judgment, appeal by defendant.

Under the objection made, the admissibility of the confession depended on the facts accompanying it and the legal inference therefrom, the facts being matter for the decision of the judge and conclusive, and the sufficiency or insufficiency thereof to warrant the admission or exclusion of the evidence being matter of law reviewable in this court. State v. Andrew, Phil., 205; State v. Whitfield, 70 N. C., 356. If from the facts the legal inference be that the confession was voluntary, then the evidence was receivable, otherwise, not.

The only facts found by His Honor and put upon the record as bearing upon the point of objection, are, that on the evening of the arrest on the plantation of Dr. Leach, in Johnston county, the defendant, formerly a slave, was carried, being tied at the time, by the officer in charge to the dwelling house of Dr. Leach, when the said Leach, in the presence of four or five white men at his house, no person of color being present, called the attention of the defendant to the vest claimed to be the one described in the bill of indictment, and which he then held in his hand and asked him, “where did you get that vest?” to which the defendant replied “from you, sir.” Dr. Leach also testified that the defendant had on at the time a vest which he had sold him, and that when he asked the question he was not speaking of that, but of the vest which he held in his hand.

Upon these facts we concur in the legal inference of the judge below, that the answer of the defendant to Dr. Leach's question was voluntary and therefore admissible...