Sweda v. State
Decision Date | 12 January 1932 |
Citation | 240 N.W. 369,206 Wis. 617 |
Parties | SWEDA v. STATE. |
Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
Error to review a judgment of the Circuit Court for Racine County; E. B. Belden, Circuit Judge.
Bronislaw Sweda, alias Bruno Smith, was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he brings error.––[By Editorial Staff.]
Affirmed.
Prosecution and conviction of Bronislaw Sweda for murder in the first degree for the killing of Julius Segelbach on January 9, 1930.Lawrence H. Smith, of Racine (Carroll R. Heft, of Racine, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.
John W. Reynolds, Atty. Gen., J. E. Messerschmidt, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Earl F. Buelow, Sp. Asst. Dist. Atty., and Charles F. Prudent, Dist. Atty., both of Racine, for the State.
On a trial, at which Bronislaw Sweda was vigorously defended by counsel, and his rights properly safeguarded by the trial judge, a jury nevertheless found him guilty of murder in the first degree for killing Julius Segelbach on January 9, 1930. Three stenographically recorded confessions made voluntarily by Sweda on occasions separated by substantial intervals during a period of ten hours, together with the testimony of Rose Segelbach, the widow of the homicide victim, and numerous corroborating circumstances testified to by credible witnesses, convincingly established Sweda's guilt beyond any reasonable doubt. The jury's verdict was well warranted by the evidence, and the conviction must be sustained unless error, affecting substantial rights of the defendant, occurred on the part of the trial judge in some respect hereinafter considered. No useful purpose would be served by detailing the facts and circumstances of the homicide.
Error is assigned because the court admitted in evidence proof establishing three confessions by the defendant, in which he stated that he shot Julius Segelbach under circumstances which constituted murder in the first degree. Sweda's counsel contends that the confessions were not made voluntarily, but were wrung from Sweda by brutal and inhuman treatment by the police, after he had been in custody about twelve hours. Sweda was arrested, while standing in the doorway of the store where the homicide occurred, upon the arrival of the police shortly after the shooting. He was taken to the police station about noon and kept there in custody that afternoon and night, excepting for some time during the late afternoon, when the police officers went with him to the store. There is evidence that within an hour after Sweda arrived at the police station, two assistants of the district attorney questioned him for about three–quarters of an hour, but only after fully advising him as to his constitutional rights to refuse to answer. Sweda then denied shooting Segelbach. Thereafter Sweda was questioned from time to time by various officials, and one of them testified that at 7 p. m. Sweda said: and that at 8:30 p. m. Sweda said: The first of the three confessions in which Sweda admitted the shooting, under circumstances constituting murder in the first degree, was made about midnight at the police station in the presence of the district attorney, who again advised Sweda of his constitutional right to refuse to speak, and also that his voluntary statements could be used against him. That confession was repeated the next morning at the office of the district attorney, and again thereafter at a preliminary examination before a court commissioner, who thoroughly explained to Sweda his constitutional rights and privileges.
[1] However, on the trial Sweda testified that at the police station he was subjected to continued mental and physical abuse, maltreatment, and deprivations by police officials, which, if his testimony were true, would certainly have constituted brutal and inhuman treatment that was wholly inexcusable and decidedly reprehensible. It is claimed that his testimony is corroborated by discolorations on his left arm, his back, and behind an ear, which two physicians testified that they found, and considered due to physical force. Their examinations were not made until some hours after Sweda had been transferred to the county jail, after a reopened preliminary hearing at which he was represented by counsel, and during the course of which there was no indication of any physical injury. The trial judge, fully aware that, before a confession should be admitted in evidence, it must be established by the state that it was made voluntarily and without any fear by the accused, and was obtained without any sort of threat or violence or promise, direct or implied, to the accused, received all evidence properly admissible on those matters. Sweda's testimony as to mistreatment was unequivocally contradicted by testimony of the police, prosecuting officials, and stenographers, who came into contact with him until he finally made the first of the three confessions, upon which the prosecution relies; and their testimony is corroborated by a fellow prisoner at the jail, and also by a casual visitor, who was inspecting the station, and to whom Sweda first indicated his desire to state the facts which constitute the first of those three confessions. Furthermore, the court commissioner, stenographer, and a newspaper reporter, who heard Sweda's confession to the same effect at the first hearing on his preliminary examination, testified that he did not appear to be scared and seemed rather self–controlled. On that occasion, the very first questions put, and Sweda's answers, were as follows:
“Q. Now, Bruno, before you do any talking as I explained to you before, do you understand that you don't have to talk unless you want to? A. What?
Q. You don't have to talk unless you want to. A. I want to talk.
Q. You understand anything you say here now can be used when you go before the judge? You understand that? A. Yes.
Q. Before Judge Belden of the Circuit Court? Anything you tell us here now can be used against you. I want you to understand that we are not making any promises to you to make you talk, nor any inducements to you and we don't want you to feel there is any threat being made to make you talk. We don't want to scare you but want you to talk of your own free will. Do you understand that? A. Yes.
Q. Do you want to tell us what happened up there? A. Yes.”
Notwithstanding the conflict and contradictions in the evidence, it was, under all of the evidence, the duty of the trial judge to determine in the first instance, as he did, whether the state had established that the confessions were made voluntarily and were obtained under such circumstances that they were admissible. Hintz v. State, 125 Wis. 405, 104 N. W. 110;Tarasinski v. State, 146 Wis. 508, 131 N. W. 889.
[2][3] His determination that the confessions were admissible was well warranted by the evidence. In so ruling, he well appreciated that the final determination of the issues of fact, upon which the voluntary character and admissibility of the confessions depended, had to be left with the jury, and that it was within the latter's province to reject any confession if the state failed to establish that it was voluntary and not obtained by improper means. Those issues were duly submitted to the jury by instructions, which properly and fully covered the subject, as follows:
“If you believe that any confession in evidence was obtained by abuse, force, threats, coercion or while, according to the evidence, the defendant was under the influence of fear of physical punishment by those having him in custody, then you should wholly reject any confession so made. The burden of proof that confessions were voluntary and not obtained by improper means rests upon the State. You are instructed that if you are satisfied that the original or first confession was made in consequence of abuse, fear, threats or coercion, or while the defendant was under the influence of fear, then it is a presumption of law that such improper influence continued and operated upon subsequent confessions unless it affirmatively appears that such coercive influence or fear had ceased to operate upon and influence the defendant in making his subsequent confessions. If you are satisfied that the original or first confession was improperly obtained or made under the influence of coercion or fear then the burden is upon the State to satisfy you that such improper influence or fear had ceased to operate upon the mind of the defendant before he made subsequent confessions.
You are instructed that a confession is a voluntary statement made at any time by a person admitting that he has committed the crime in question. In order to entitle it to be considered by the jury such confession must be the free and voluntary act of the defendant. This means that the confession must not have been obtained by any sort of threat or coercion or by any sort of violence practiced upon the accused.
You are at liberty to accept or reject the whole or any part of any or all of the confessions in evidence accordingly as you are satisfied by the evidence that they or any part of them were obtained or made under proper or improper influences or conditions and accordingly as...
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