Sullivan v. State

• Decision Date: 21 June 1899
• Docket Number: 10641
• Citation: 79 N.W. 721,58 Neb. 796
• Parties: THOMAS SULLIVAN v. STATE OF NEBRASKA
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

79 N.W. 721

58 Neb. 796

THOMAS SULLIVAN v. STATE OF NEBRASKA

No. 10641

Supreme Court of Nebraska

June 21, 1899

ERROR to the district court for Douglas county. Tried below before SLABAUGH, J. Affirmed.

AFFIRMED.

William F. Gurley and Lee S. Estelle, for plaintiff in error:

Confession without proof of corpus delicti will not support a conviction. (Commonwealth v. Ackert, 133 Mass. 402; Matthews v. State, 55 Ala. 187; Williams v People, 101 Ill. 382; Priest v. State, 10 Neb 393; People v. Hennessey, 15 Wend. [N. Y.] 147; Stringfellow v. State, 26 Miss. 157.)

C. J Smyth, Attorney General, and W. D. Oldham, Deputy Attorney General, for the state.

OPINION

SULLIVAN, J.

On an information charging him with the crime of murder Thomas Sullivan was tried, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for a period of eleven years. Of the errors assigned the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict is the only one properly before us for consideration. The action of the court in giving and refusing certain instructions is called in question and discussed by counsel at considerable length, but the point was not raised in the motion for a new trial and cannot be successfully urged for the first time in this court. The substance of the accusation against the defendant is that, with premeditation and malice, he shot and killed one Thomas Kirkland. On the trial the truth of the charge was shown by the prisoner's voluntary confessions made to police officers on the night of the tragedy. It is now contended that such confessions were the only proofs of the corpus delicti, and that they were not competent evidence of that fact. We do not assent to either proposition. Independent of the deliberate and voluntary confessions, the salient facts disclosed by the record are: That on the night in question Sullivan became involved in a quarrel with some colored men near the Tenth street viaduct, in the city of Omaha; that while the broil was in progress he ran into the saloon of Walter Brandise, obtained a revolver, and ran out again, declaring that he intended to kill "a black nigger;" that he ran north to the alley; that just across the alley a man, who afterwards proved to be Kirkland, was seen walking south; that there was the flash and report of a pistol; that the man walking south fell on the sidewalk, where he was immediately after found dead; that just after the shot was fired Sullivan ran back to the saloon, threw the revolver on the floor, and exclaimed, "My God I have killed Tom Kirkland, my best friend," or words to that effect; that he then hurried back to the dying man, raised his head, and again declared that he had shot or killed his best friend and that he would be hanged. No person, other than Kirkland and Sullivan, was seen on the street or in the vicinity at the time the shot was fired. There was no direct evidence of any wound upon the body of the deceased, and the circumstances above detailed, together with the prisoner's subsequent confession that he shot him under the impression that he was a negro, constitute the whole of the evidence tending to show that death was the result of a gunshot wound.

In this case the elements of the corpus delicti are, first the death of Thomas Kirkland; and second, the criminal agency of some one, not necessarily the defendant, in causing such death. (People v. Palmer, 109 N.Y. 110, 16 N.E. 529; Carlton v. People, 150 Ill. 181, 37 N.E. 244; State v. Jones, 106 Mo. 302, 17 S.W. 366; People v. Simonsen, 107 Cal. 345, 40 P. 440; Johnson v Commonwealth, 29 Gratt. 796.) The uniform doctrine of the American courts is that a conviction for felony will not be sustained when the only evidence of guilt is the extra-judicial confession of the defendant that a crime has been committed. His confession may be sufficient to prove his own connection with the alleged criminal act, but there must in all cases be proof aliunde of the essential facts constituting the crime. (Priest v. State, 10 Neb. 393, 6 N.W. 468; Smith v. State, 17 Neb. 358, 22 N.W. 780. See, also, 6 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law [2d ed.] p. 581, where the cases are collected.) But while a voluntary confession is insufficient, standing alone, to prove that a crime has been committed, it is, nevertheless, competent evidence of that fact, and may, with slight corroborative circumstances, establish the corpus delicti as well as the defendant's guilty participation. Discussing this question Nelson, C. J., in People v. Badgley, 16 Wend. 53, said: "Full proof of the body of the crime, the corpus delicti, independently of the confession, is not required by any of the cases; and in many of them slight corroborating facts were held sufficient. " The doctrine of this case was distinctly approved in People v. Jaehne, 103 N.Y. 182, 8 N.E. 374, where it was held that equivocal circumstance offered as proof of the corpus delicti, might be interpreted in the light of the prisoner's confession and the fact under investigation be thus given a criminal aspect. In State v. Hall, 31 W.Va. 505, 7 S.E. 422, the court, considering this question, said: "We know of no decisions anywhere that hold the admissions of the defendant are not competent evidence tending to prove the corpus delicti, but they certainly are competent evidence tending to prove that the crime charged has been committed." It has often been held in cases where there was no direct proof of the crime, as in prosecutions for adultery and trials for homicide where the body of the deceased had not been found, that the defendant's extrajudicial confession, in connection with other incriminating circumstances, would warrant a conviction. (Ryan v. State, 100 Ala. 94, 14 So. 868; State v. Lamb, 28 Mo. 218; State v. Patterson, 73 Mo. 695; Commonwealth v. McCann, 97 Mass. 580; United States v. Williams, 1 Cliff. 5; United States v. Gibert, 2 Sumn. 19...