State v. Williams

• Decision Date: 09 February 1954
• Docket Number: No. 48324,48324
• Citation: 245 Iowa 494,62 N.W.2d 742
• Parties: STATE v. WILLIAMS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 742

62 N.W.2d 742

245 Iowa 494

STATE v. WILLIAMS.

No. 48324.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 9, 1954.

Henry T. McKnight, James B. Morris, Jr., and Archie M. Greenlee, Des Moines, for appellant.

Leo H. Hoegh, Atty. Gen., Raphael R. R. Dvorak, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Clyde E. Herring, County Atty. of Polk County, Des Moines, for appellee.

OLIVER, Justice.

The indictment charged defendant committed burglary of the dwelling house of Mrs. Eleanor Dill at 294 East 17th Street, in Des Moines, in the nighttime, with intent to commit larceny, and, after having entered such dwelling house, assaulted Mrs. Dill. Mrs. Dill testified she slept on a divan on the first floor of her house. Her two small children and her sister slept on the second floor. Her husband was in the army in Germany. About 1:00 a. m., June 2, 1952, she awakened to find the light of a pencil flashlight shining in her eyes. A male voice whispered, 'Don't scream or I will kill you.' The man then asked her if she had any money. She said she had $2 and started to arise to get it. He pushed her down on the divan and told her to be quiet or he would kill her. He kept repeating this threat in a soft voice or whisper. He said he had a knife. She heard him open it and felt it on her side. Then he compelled her to remove her nether garment and, under threat of death, proceeded to have intercourse with her. Before he completed this act he ran out of the house, apparently frightened by something. The outside doors and windows of the house had been closed when Mrs. Dill retired.

For some time before and after this occurrence, Officers Buckroyd and Rider of the Des Moines police department were assigned to the prowler detail covering a considerable area on the east side of Des Moines. Mrs. Dill's home was in this area. September 23, 1952, at about 11:10 p. m. they went to 1711 East Grand Street in response to a call. 'We were looking for the prowler'. Buckroyd went around one side of the house, Rider around the other. At the rear of the house Rider apprehended the defendant who called out, 'I give up. Don't shoot.' The officers searched defendant and took from him a knife, a screwdriver and a pencil flashlight. He was wearing a cap, tennis shoes and a jacket. He had left his billfold and keys at his home and there were no means of identification upon his person.

Defendant is a Negro, is married and has a family. He was employed by Manbeck Motor Company as a maintenance and general utility man. His home was about two miles distant from the place where he was captured. He said he came there in a street car but gave no reason for prowling that house. The officers promptly called for a patrol car which would take defendant to the police station. While awaiting its arrival they asked defendant about prowlings and burglaries.

One of the officers testified defendant said 'he had been in so many houses that he couldn't remember how many.' This place was only about three blocks from the home of Mrs. Dill. Both officers testified they then questioned defendant about the Dill burglary and he admitted he had committed it. Defendant, as a witness, did not deny any of the foregoing testimony concerning his capture and admissions. Nor did he testify or contend such admissions or statements were not made freely and voluntarily.

Officers Buckroyd and Rider returned to the police station. They testified they then took defendant from jail to the detectives' office, went over reports and complaints of prowlings, burglaries, etc., and asked him whether 'he did them.' There were about two hundred of these and 'we were trying to pick out the ones that we thought Felix was in on.' Officer Rider testified he told defendant 'that we had been looking for him for a long time,' and defendant said, 'I have been in a lot of them (houses) but not all of them'. Officer Rider testified also: 'When I first read the report to Felix of someone breaking into 294 East 17th Street, Felix said that he did it.' Defendant was returned to his cell at about 3 a. m.

Later that morning he was again questioned. In the afternoon he was taken to some of the houses which had been burglarized. There was testimony he stated he had entered Mrs. Dill's home by the front door; that before entering a house he would flash the pencil-light in windows and look in the front door to find out if any men were there, and that he used the screw driver to pry screens from windows of houses.

The following day, September 25, defendant was again interrogated and signed a typewritten statement in which he admitted the Dill burglary. He was taken to the show-up room for identification by various women. That afternoon he was formally charged with burglary of another dwelling and was taken before the magistrate and arraigned. That night Mrs. Dill viewed and listened to defendant in the show-up room and identified him. She testified he then admitted he had been in the Dill home, that he entered through the front door, asked her for money, attempted to assault her and left by the back door. The next day he was charged with three more burglaries, one of which was of the Dill dwelling. Later he was indicted for the Dill burglary. Trial resulted in his conviction of burglary with aggravation. Thereafter, the court overruled his motion for new trial and sentenced him to the state penitentiary for life. Hence, this appeal by defendant.

I. January 24, 1953, defendant filed a petition for a change of venue alleging it would be impossible to select twelve unbiased jurors so that he could receive a fair trial in Polk County, because of the excitement and prejudice against him occasioned by certain articles published in Des Moines newspapers September 24 to October 2, 1952. These newspaper accounts had detailed his capture, questioning by the police and identification by women victims, and stated the police asserted he was the long-sought east side prowler.

February 2, the court denied the change of venue, stating in part that the articles had been published four months previously and it appeared to the court 'defendant can and will receive a fair trial by a Polk County jury.' Section 778.9, Code of Iowa 1950, I.C.A., provides the court, in the exercise of a sound discretion, must decide the matter of such a petition according to the very right of it. We are satisfied the refusal of a change of venue was not an abuse of the discretion lodged in the trial court. This court has frequently so held in the face of showings stronger than here made. State v. Mauch, 236 Iowa 217, 224, 17 N.W.2d 536; State v. Smith, 219 Iowa 168, 172, 256 N.W. 651, and citations.

Furthermore, in this case some of the prospective jurors did not even remember the newspaper stories. The others remembered them only vaguely or disinterestedly. There was no indication of excitement or prejudice. No prospective juror was challenged for cause. The actual record as made on the impaneling of the jury effectively disposes of defendant's contention that an unbiased jury could not be secured because of excitement and prejudice against him. State v. Hamil, 96 Iowa 728, 729, 65 N.W. 395.

II. Defendant contends the court should have held his purported declarations, oral admissions, etc., made while in police custody, were involuntary as a matter of law, and his objections to evidence thereof should have been sustained on that ground. We do not agree with these contentions. It is true defendant testified the admissions were wrung from him by threats, intimidation, and physical abuse. However, members of the police department and various other witnesses testified the statements were made freely and voluntarily and denied in detail his charges of threats, intimidation and abuse.

Defendant, several members of his family, and one other person testified his face and the side of his head were swollen and his lips and eye were cut by beatings administered to him, beginning when he was first interrogated at the police station. The police and various other persons who saw him during this period testified to the contrary and we are told photographs of defendant, then taken, discredit his story. The only visible physical disability noticed by the photographer was a bloodshot eye and defendant then said 'he got something in it.' A doctor who examined him September 28, testified he noticed nothing except evidence of conjunctivitis of one eye, of which the common cause is a bacterial infection which follows a previous irritation of the eye by dust or wind, exposure or trauma. He could not obtain from defendant any history of the ailment.

The jury was instructed the statements or admissions of defendant should not be considered unless the jury found the same were voluntary, etc. Also the jury was given, in substance, a special interrogatory requested by defendant, 'Do you under the evidence * * *, find that the alleged statements or admissions made by the defendant, Felix Williams, if any, to the police officers * * * were made by reason of any assurance of leniency or other inducement, or by means of threats, violence or abuse by the police officers of the City of Des Moines, or any of them?' The jury answered the interrogatory, 'No.'

It should be here stated that the court sustained defendant's objection to the offer by the state of his typewritten confession, because it was not limited to the offense charged in the indictment but referred also to other offenses.

The test of the admissibility of confessions is whether they were made freely and voluntarily and without compulsion or inducement of any kind. The evidence a statement relied upon as an admission or confession was or was not made freely and voluntarily may be so clear and undisputed as to make that a question of law for the court. But where the free and voluntary character of such statement is the subject of dispute or conflict in the evidence, the question is one of fact for the jury. State v. Crisman, 244 Iowa...