Turner v. State
| Decision Date | 16 June 1948 |
| Docket Number | 16240. |
| Citation | 48 S.E.2d 522,203 Ga. 770 |
| Parties | TURNER v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Joe M. Ray, of Cuthbert, for plaintiff in error.
Maston O'Neal, Sol. Gen., of Bainbridge, J. Martin Cowart, of Arlington, Eugene Cook, Atty. Gen., and Margaret Hartson, of Atlanta, for defendant in error.
Syllabus Opinion by the Court.
1. While under the Code, § 38-411, a confession is admissible only if made voluntarily, without being induced by another by the slightest hope of benefit or the remotest fear of punishment, and it was held in Green v. State, 88 Ga. 516, 15 S.E. 10, 30 Am.St.Rep. 167, Dixon v State, 113 Ga. 1039, 39 S.E. 846, King v State, 155 Ga. 707, 118 S.E. 368, and McLemore v State, 181 Ga. 462, 182 S.E. 618, 102 A.L.R. 634, that the confessions there dealt with were inadmissible because of the nature of the statements made to the accused, together with the circumstances surrounding the accused at the time he made the confession, yet in the Code, § 38-412, it is provided that 'The fact that a confession shall have been made under a spiritual exhortation, or a promise of secrecy or a promise of collateral benefit, shall not exclude it'; and it was held in Hicks v. State, 178 Ga. 561, 173 S.E. 395, and Watkins v. State, 199 Ga. 81, 33 S.E.2d 325, 335, that confessions otherwise admissible are not rendered inadmissible because the accused was told by another in substance that it was always best to tell the truth. Thus is illustrated the necessity of deciding each case upon its particular facts and circumstances, the applicable rule of law being that an involuntary confession is inadmissible, and a voluntary confession is admissible. The voluntary character of the confession depends on the question whether the making of the statement was voluntary, and not whether the particular communication contained in it was voluntary. Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 18 S.Ct. 183, 42 L.Ed. 568.
2. While the plain provisions of the Code, § 38-412, forbid a ruling that to be admissible a confession must be spontaneous, as was said in King v. State, supra, the provisions of § 38-411, require the exclusion from evidence of any confession that is induced by another by the slightest hope that the confession would make his punishment lighter. Accordingly, the confession or incriminatory statement in the present case, in which the accused was convicted of murder with a recommendation of mercy,...
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Presnell v. State, 32995
...(induced by one other than the defendant) is usually the "hope of benefit" to which Code Ann. § 38-411 refers (Turner v. State, 203 Ga. 770(1)(2), 48 S.E.2d 522 (1948); King v. State, 155 Ga. 707, 715, 118 S.E. 368 (1923)), and that agreeing to the defendant's request to put him in a cell b......
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...that the rule as to the admissibility of an incriminatory statement is the same as that applied to a confession. Turner v. State, 203 Ga. 770, 771(3), 48 S.E.2d 522 (1948). See also Fuller v. State, 109 Ga. 809, 811-812(1), 35 S.E. 298 (1900); Fletcher v. State, 90 Ga. 468, 469(1), 17 S.E. ......
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...any confession that is induced by another by the slightest hope that the confession would make his punishment lighter." Turner v. State, 203 Ga. 770(2), 48 S.E.2d 522, quoted in Johnson v. State, 238 Ga. 27, 28, 230 S.E.2d The appellants made a pre-trial Brady v. Maryland motion to obtain a......
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