United States v. Williams

• Decision Date: 19 May 1900
• Docket Number: 157.
• Citation: 103 F. 938
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. WILLIAMS.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Texas

103 F. 938

UNITED STATES v. WILLIAMS.

No. 157.

United States District Court, W.D. Texas.

May 19, 1900

Henry Terrell and T. W. Dodd, for the United States.

Andrew Winslow and J. O. Nicholson, for defendant.

BOARMAN District Judge (orally).

On the trial of the case the evidence was not taken down. Much to the regret of the court, it was impracticable to secure the services of a stenographer. The court, in considering this motion, will have to rely upon statements of counsel on either side, together with my own memory as to the material facts developed in the testimony. The counsel agreed pretty well as facts developed in the testimony. The counsel agreed pretty well as to what the testimony was. According to my recollection, the testimony is much like the statements upon which the counsel agreed. The government offered the written confession of the defendant, which was taken down by a stenographer, soon after the defendant was arrested, at the instance of the deputy marshal who arrested him. It is conceded that the governor of the state of Texas offered a reward of $250 for the arrest of the man that killed Hardesty. The government offered no testimony other than defendant's confession to show, or even suggesting, that defendant killed deceased. There was nothing said by any of the government witnesses in relation to the cause of the killing, or as to the matters or circumstances attending immediately the killing. The government relied alone for conviction upon the confession of defendant, supplemented by other testimony, which related to some material circumstances occurring after the homicide.

It seems, but for defendant's confession, neither the court nor the jury would have had any knowledge of the fact that the defendant killed Hardesty, or of any circumstance attending the killing, antecedent thereto or subsequent to the killing. The confession is as follows:

'On Saturday morning, December the 9th, 1899, I was standing in Troy Johnson's saloon, about twelve o'clock. A young fellow by the name of Jack Hardesty came there. He was from Monterey. He was singing and drinking, and he left. I didn't drink any at all with him. It was some song that he sang concerning Kentucky. I went around to the National Depot about one o'clock, to see the train master, and came back to the saloon, and went to the I. &amp G.N. Depot to see the train come in, and there I met him again. He came up, and spoke to me, and asked me if I was going to town, and I told him 'Yes.' After the train came in, he and I walked to the post office, and I asked for my mail. There was no mail for me, and then he and I left from the post office, and went to the Jarves Plaza, and sat down there for fifteen minutes. There was passing some young white ladies, and they laughed at him and I sitting there, and he made some remarks, and I told him he ought not to do it, because the white people down there, who wouldn't do anything to him, they would punish me. We left the plaza, and went to the I. & G.N Depot, and stood up there talking, and he told me he was going away next morning on the freight train. I and he were going together. He brought it up about those white ladies again, and asked me what rights did I have to take up for them. I told him I didn't have any rights, any more than it was wrong for him to make expressions that way; and he said again, if I thought I had any rights, I had better take some of the rights out of him. I told him I didn't want to have any fuss with him, because he might have the advantage of me. The he walked up, and struck me, and called me a . . ., and then he said if I didn't like that to just go with him on the prairies, and he would finish it. We went, and got through the government post fence, and walked out in the reservation, and passed where lots of mesquite bushes were near a path, and just as he got behind the bushes he runs out with a big one-edge dirk knife, and he started toward me, and as he rushed upon me I caught the blade with my arm, and took the knife from him, and cut him, as he was coming to me, in the neck. When I cut him he said 'Oh, Lord.' and he turned and run away, and I followed after him, and cut him in the back. I kicked him in the head, and stamped him in the back, and then I threw the knife away, and jumped and run. He was a white man. As we was coming from the post office, he had a quart bottle of mescal in his pocket, and he asked didn't I want some, and I told him 'Yes,' and he drank some, and we went into a dry-goods store. On the street running west of Convrey's livery stable, on the corner on the same block,-- a yellow painted house, a drug store on the corner. Both of us went in there to see some combs, and the clerk showed us some combs, and he bought one for fifteen cents, and he pulled out a ten-dollar greenback and two silver dollars, and gave it to me, and told me to keep until the freight train left next morning, as he and I were going off together. After I killed this man, I ran and went to the back of the Commercial Hotel, around to the kitchen, and I knocked on the window, and called Abe Temple, and he came to the window, and asked me if I wanted something to eat, and I told him 'No'; to hurry, and come out, because I was in trouble; and he asked me what was it, and I told him I had cut a man, and he told me to meet him at the plaza. I was going to get me some clothes, and I went to a dry-goods store, and bought me a pair of pants, and a pair of shoes, and a shirt, and then went back to the plaza, and sat there until Abe Temple came. When Abe came, we got a cup of coffee, and got in a hack, and went down to the river bridge, and we had a dispute with the hack driver about the fare, and then I gave him one dollar Mexican money, and we got the hack; and I changed $7.00 with Mr. Navarro, the bridge keeper, and then we crossed, and went to some . . . houses; and the first crowd of . . . in there they made light of us, and called us negrones, and we left there and went down the streets, and met a policeman, and Abe asked the policeman if he would take care of me that night, and feared I might get robbed. As the policeman was carrying me to the police station, and as Abe departed, I told him 'No'; to take me to the depot, so I could get that train going out that night. So the policeman took me to the depot, but the train had done gone. And then I went back in town, and struck up with another . . ., and I gave her one dollar Mexican money to stay with her all night; and then the next morning I went back to the depot, and got on the passenger train, and went to Monterey, and stayed in Monterey four hours, and got on the passenger train at Monterey, when a friend of money that was portering on the road put me in a small room, and brought me to Eagle Pass. The porter's name was Will Kimble. After I got to Eagle Pass, I went up the post, and got dinner, and have been up in the post ever since until arrested. I was walking out Saturday morning, and went across the river, and a man asked did I want a job of work, and I told him 'Yes,' and he told me that I could come back. I asked him what time it was, and he said it was half past one, Mexican time, and I told him I had to be back at half past two; and I came back, and he gave me a paper, and it was on the paper these words: 'Put these two men to work at once, and to-morrow, if possible.' I went on across the railroad bridge, and went to the freight house, and asked for mr. Vaughn. Mr. Vaughn wasn't in, and Mr. Dowe, the sheriff, asked me for my name, and I told him 'Arthur Williams,' and he said, 'I have a warrant for you,' and I told him, 'All right,' and he brought me to the jail house, and put me in jail. I was arrested Saturday, January 6th, and put in jail the same day, Saturday 6, 1900. From 5 o'clock in the evening until 7 o'clock the evening of the murder, he and I drank a quart of mescal. He was very drunk, but I was not drunk.'

The confession, taken as a whole, is sufficient, under the law to inculpate defendant in the crime of manslaughter. The exculpatory statements therein, if true, forbid the conclusion that he is guilty of murder. On inspection of the typewritten statements which show the confessions of the defendant, it will be seen that pen and ink interlineations and additions appear therein at several places. There is nothing stated by the official before whom the confession was taken, and there is nothing in the paper itself, to show when, or at what time, or by whom such interlineations were made, or who made them. The words and sentences written in capital letters herein will call attention to the interlineations. It appears from the testimony that Deputy Marshal Hanson arrested defendant; and a shorthand writer, at his instance, took down the statements of defendant. These statements were afterwards transcribed into typewritten longhand, and in the typewritten matter appear the interlineations made with pen. After the statement of defendant was transcribed into typewritten longhand, it appears that defendant was taken before a justice of the peace, and that before such justice he stated under oath that the statements were true and correct, and that he made such statements of his own free will and accord, after being warned by Deputy Hanson 'that the statements would be used against him, and not in his own favor. ' It is contended by counsel for defendant that the confession offered by the government should not be received, 'because the admissions were made at a time and under circumstances when defendant's mind was oppressed by the calamity of the situation, and were made, if made at all, with the hope of reward, if not with the fear of punishment, for this: that the said defendant was then and there told by the said...