State v. Thomas, 657

• Citation: 85 S.E.2d 300,241 N.C. 337
• Decision Date: 14 January 1955
• Docket Number: No. 657,657
• Parties: STATE, v. LeRoy THOMAS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina

Page 300

85 S.E.2d 300

241 N.C. 337

STATE, v. LeRoy THOMAS.

No. 657

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Jan. 14, 1955

E. L. Alston, Jr., Greensboro, for defendant, appellant.

Harry McMullan, Atty. Gen., Ralph Moody, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Charles G. Powell, Jr., Raleigh, Member of Staff, for the State.

PARKER, Justice.

The defendant has two assignments of error, which pose two questions for decision. One. Was an alleged confession made by the defendant properly admitted in evidence? Two. Should his motion for judgment of nonsuit made at the conclusion of the State's evidence--the defendant introduced no evidence--have been allowed?

First, The Voluntariness of the

Defendant's Confession.

Thurman Jones, a deputy sheriff of Guilford County, testified for the State that he arrested LeRoy Thomas, the defendant, on a warrant charging him with the capital crime of arson, and that he questioned him that same afternoon, while he was fingerprinting him, and immediately afterwards.

At this point in Thurman Jones' testimony counsel for the defendant requested the court 'for a finding of fact as to whether or not any purported conversation was voluntary.' Whereupon, the court sent the jury to their room, and the following testimony was elicited in their absence. Thurman Jones gave testimony tending to show: The defendant was not drunk, and had been in custody only a few minutes. He did not handcuff, or strike or otherwise mistreat the defendant. No one pointed a pistol or weapon at the defendant. He neither promised defendant any reward, nor gave him any inducement to make a statement, nor did anyone in his presence. Neither did he, nor anyone in his presence, make any threats against the defendant. The defendant had been in his presence all the time since he had been in custody. He did not tell the defendant if he confessed, it would go lighter on him, or if he didn't confess, he could convict him any way. He did not tell the defendant if he confessed he might get 10 years; if not, he might get life or the gas chamber. The only thing he told the defendant was: 'Thomas, this is a serious charge. You know you couldn't do that, and get by with it without someone seeing you.' To which the defendant replied: 'I know it. When I left the house they turned the car lights on me as I went down the street.' After the finger-printing was finished, he went into a room, and talked to the defendant in the presence of two officers. 'We told him if he told us anything to tell the truth, if he would not tell the truth, not to tell anything at all.' The defendant said he 'wanted to tell the truth about it', and then made a statement. We did not tell him that what he said might be used against him, or that he did not have to talk.

LeRoy Thomas, the defendant, testified: That he was questioned by two officers, one of whom was Mr. Riley,--Thurman Jones was not one of them--from 7:30 to 2:30 the Saturday he was arrested. On Sunday evening he was questioned by one man, who came from Raleigh; so he was told. One of the deputy sheriffs told him something like 'It will be better for you, if you confess, and it will be bad on you, if you don't confess. We got you. We got three witnesses see you down there at the house at this time. We can prove you did it. You might as well make a confession.' They did not tell me what would happen to me if I did not confess, but they were beating on the desk at me. They said: 'Be better if you make a confession, and plead guilty to it, you would come out better--might get out in 8 or 10 years, and then again you might not make no time.'

Betty Warren testified for the State that she took down what the defendant said--not the questions. Three deputy sheriffs were questioning the defendant.

At this point the jury was recalled into the courtroom, and the court held that the statement made by the defendant was competent, and admitted it in evidence.

The defendant contends that he testified Mr. Riley and another officer questioned him, and that one of them told him it would be better for him, if he confessed; that this evidence was not refuted, though Mr. Riley was in the courtroom and was pointed out by him; and therefore the statement was not voluntary.

The substance of Thurman Jones' testimony was to the effect that the defendant was not told, if he confessed, that it would be better for him, or that the officers used any such words to him as were testified to by the defendant.

A confession in a criminal action is voluntary in law if, and only if, it was in fact, voluntarily made. State v. Hamer, 240 N.C. 85, 81 S.E.2d 193. The Court said in State v. Marsh, 234 N.C. 101, 66 S.E.2d 684, 687: 'The competency of a confession is a preliminary question for the trial court, State v. Andrew, 61 N.C. 205, to be determined in the manner pointed out in State v. Whitener, 191 N.C. 659, 132 S.E. 603, and the court's ruling thereon is not subject to review, if supported by any competent evidence. State v. Alston, 215 N.C. 713, 3 S.E.2d 11.'

The mere fact that the defendant was in jail under arrest, and was there questioned by several officers does not render his confession incompetent. State v. Rogers, 233 N.C. 390, 64 S.E.2d 572, 28 A.L.R.2d 1104; State v. Stefanoff, 206 N.C. 443, 174 S.E. 411.

It is not essential to the competency of the defendant's confession that the officers should have cautioned him that any statement made by him might be used against him, and should have informed him that he was at liberty to refuse to answer any questions, or to make any statement, and that such refusal could not thereafter be used to his prejudice. It suffices if the statement were voluntary. The questioning by the officers was not a judicial proceeding. State v. Lord, 225 N.C. 354, 34 S.E.2d 205; Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U.S. 596, 64 S.Ct. 1208, 68 L.Ed. 1481. As to the rule in a judicial proceeding, see State v. Dixon, 215 N.C. 438, 2 S.E.2d 371; State v. Grier, 203 N.C. 586, 166 S.E. 595.

The statement to the defendant by the officers that if he told them anything, to tell the truth, did not make the statement incompetent. 'The rule generally approved is, that 'Where the prisoner is advised to tell nothing but the truth, or even when what is said to him has no tendency to induce him to make an untrue statement, his confession in either case is admissible' '. State v. Thompson, 227 N.C. 19, 40 S.E.2d 620, 624.

The Record discloses that the trial judge made due preliminary inquiry into the voluntariness of the confession allegedly made by the defendant. After hearing Thurman Jones and Betty Warren for the State, and the defendant for himself, the trial judge found that the confession was voluntary, and admitted it in evidence. This ruling cannot be disturbed on this appeal, because it is supported by competent evidence, and no error of law or legal inference appears. State v. Rogers, supra; State v. Brooks, 225 N.C. 662, 36 S.E.2d 238.

Second, The Sufficiency of the

Evidence.

The defendant contends that the State did not introduce any evidence aliunde the defendant's confession of sufficient probative value to withstand his motion for judgment of nonsuit under the rule set forth in State v. Cope, 240 N.C. 244, 81 S.E.2d 773.

The general rule is well settled that a naked extra-judicial confession of guilt by a defendant charged with crime, uncorroborated by any other evidence, is not sufficient to sustain a conviction. State v. Cope, supra; Annotation 127 A.L.R. 1131, where the cases are assembled.

The overwhelming weight of authority requires that the evidence corroborating the confession must relate to and tend to establish the corpus delicti. Annotation 127 A.L.R. 1134, where the cases are cited.

Whitfield, C. J., speaking for the Court in Spears v. State, 92 Miss. 613, 46 So. 166 167, 16 L.R.A.,N.S., 285, said: 'The corpus delicti in a case of arson consists, not only in the proof of the burning of the house or other thing burnt, but of criminal agency in causing the burning.' A note in 16 L.R.A., N.S., 285, states: 'However, in accordance with the rule laid down in Spears v. State, it is now universally recognized by all the courts that the corpus delicti in arson consists of both elements, that is not only the burning, but also the criminal agency causing it.' And on page 286 of the same note it is said: '* * * it naturally follows that there can be no conviction of arson without satisfactory proof, either by direct or circumstantial evidence, not only that the building was burned, but also that it was burned through some criminal agency, and was not an accidental or other providential cause.' To the same effect see Annotation L.R.A.1916D, 1299 et seq. Proof of corpus delicti in arson.

The corpus delicti may be established by direct or by circumstantial evidence. State v. Cope, supra; 23 C.J.S., Criminal Law, § 916, p. 185.

In Davis v. State, 141 Ala. 62, 37 So. 676, evidence that the prosecutor's house was burned in his absence, that no dynamite or other explosive substance was in his house when he left it, that there were tracks from the house to where a mule had been hitched, and mule tracks from there to where defendant lived, that the mule tracks corresponded with the defendant's mule, and the finding of tufts of mule's hair that corresponded with the hair of defendant's mule, was held sufficient evidence of the corpus delicti to render admissible evidence of defendant's confession that he set fire to the house.

In Com. v. McCann, 97 Mass. 580, 583, the Court said: 'The fact that the barn had been burned was proved by other evidence. There was evidence of the hostility of the defendant towards the occupant of the property destroyed, and of her threats against him within a few hours before the fire. This was not, therefore, a case requiring the judge to instruct the jury whether...