State v. Vann
| Decision Date | 31 January 1880 |
| Citation | 82 N.C. 631 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. WILLIAM H. VANN. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
INDICTMENT for Murder tried at Fall Term, 1879, of HERTFORD Superior Court, before Gudger, J.
Verdict of guilty, judgment, appeal by prisoner.
Attorney General and R. B. Peebles, for the State .
Messrs. Pruden & Shaw, for prisoner .
The prisoner was indicted for the murder of James H. Gatling, and tried and convicted in the superior court of Hertford, and on the trial he made several exceptions, which we will consider in their proper order.
1. When the jury were being formed, a juror was called and passed by the state without objection, and on being challenged by the prisoner, he said he had not formed and expressed an opinion as to the prisoner's guilt, but that he believed him insane at the time the homicide was committed, and that belief was so firmly fixed that no evidence could remove it. Thereupon the state was allowed to challenge the juror for cause, and the cause was held good. This point has been ruled during this term of the court in conformity with previous rulings, and this exception is untenable. State v. Vestal, ante, 563.
2. The second exception is as to the admission of certain confessions made by the prisoner to one Pittman at the house of deceased, while in his custody and pending investigation of the case before the coroner's jury: It was shown that many persons were at the house, and some excitement among them, some saying that prisoner ought not to have anything to eat, and others that he ought to be hanged, but none of these expressions, nor the answer of the officer that the prisoner should have something to eat if he had to carry him home to get it, were made in the prisoner's hearing. It was also shown that a number of persons assembled around the prisoner when he was first brought to the house of the deceased, but were separated from him by the officer. That the conversation occurred the next morning at nine or ten o'clock, and after prisoner had remained all night at the house, and while the coroner's jury were sitting on the case, but was not in their hearing. It was proved by the officer that prisoner's hopes and fears were not operated upon. Whether the confessions were voluntary or induced by hope or fear was a preliminary question of fact to the judge below, and he found the fact that there was no hope or fear operating on the prisoner, and his finding is conclusive and cannot be reviewed by us as to that, and there being no exception to His Honor's opinion as to what constituted such fear or hope as would exclude the confession, there is no matter of law which we can review, and therefore we must hold that there was no error in admitting the confessions made to Pittman. State v. Davis, 63 N. C., 578; State v. Andrew, Phil., 205.
3. The officer having the prisoner in charge, who was tied at the time, said to the prisoner in the presence of the coroner's jury, “You have to die as well as Henry Gatling, and ought not to die with a lie on your lips.” The prisoner made no reply, and was very soon thereafter on the same day committed to the jail; and nineteen days after that time, one Jones passing the jail said to prisoner, “I suppose you are in here for a bad crime.” The prisoner answered ““yes.” The witness then said, “why did you kill Henry Gatling,” and to this the prisoner replied, “because I was mad with him.” This confession was received precisely as was the preceding one to Pittman, and for the reason given in relation to that evidence, the admission of prisoner's conversation with Jones was proper.
The prisoner proposed to show by one of the state's witnesses other declarations made by him while in jail in explanation of his statement to Jones, and as tending to show his insanity, to-wit: These declarations formed no part of any act admitted in evidence. They were made at a time different from the statement to Jones and had no connection with the conversation had with him, nor with the one had with Pittman, and we understand the rule to be that a party charged with a crime can never put in evidence in his own behalf any declarations of his after its commission, not even in support of insanity as a defence, unless as a part of the res gestæ to some act which is admitted in evidence.
In the case of State v. Scott, 1 Hawks, 24, upon a charge of murder the prisoner set up the defence of insanity, and to prove the truth thereof proposed evidence of his declarations in connection with his conduct on the next morning, and Judge HENDERSON, delivering the opinion of the court, uses this language: See also State v. Huntley, 3 Ired., 418, and State v. Tilly, Id., 424. For these reasons we hold there was no error in rejecting evidence of the proposed declarations of the prisoner.
It was conceded by the state on the trial that the prisoner was violently insane shortly before the homicide and was then of unsound mind, but it was...
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...of evidence. It is more correct to say, as we think, that they must be proved to the satisfaction of the jury.' Id. at 29. In State v. Vann, 82 N.C. 631, 635 (1880), Justice Dillard, elucidating the law laid down in Ellick and Willis, 'In an indictment for murder, the two constituents of th......
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