Venable v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 18 December 1873
• Parties: VENABLE v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

65 Va. 639

VENABLE v. COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

December 18, 1873

Prisoner charged with murder, makes a confession to a police officer on the morning of the day he is examined by the police justice. Before that examination he has employed counsel, and he is warned, both by his counsel and the police justice against making any statement or confession. Being committed by the justice, on getting to the jail he appears to be very much frightened and agitated; and upon getting there he makes a confession, and again on the same day confesses the deed to a woman of his acquaintance who is in the jail. Though the confession to the police officer was properly excluded, the confession made after the warnings given him are proper evidence.

At the June term 1873, of the Hustings court of the city of Richmond, Horace Venable was indicted for the murder of Mary Holmes. He was tried at the same term of the court, and the jury found him guilty of murder in the first degree; and the court sentenced him to be hung. From this judgment he applied for and obtained a writ of error and supersedeas from this court.

The only question in the cause was as to the admission of his confessions as evidence; and upon this the facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Young, for the prisoner.

The Attorney-General, for the Commonwealth.

OPINION

MONCURE P.

This is a writ of error to a judgment of the Hustings court of the city of Richmond, convicting the plaintiff in error of murder in the first degree, and sentencing him to be hung therefor. There is but one assignment of error in the case; and that is, the admission by the court of certain confessions set out in the bill of exceptions, as evidence against the prisoner. A like confession, previously made to another person (Hulce) had been excluded by the court, no doubt because it was obtained by a temporal inducement--by a promise or hope of favor held out to the prisoner, in respect of his escape from the charge against him, by a person in authority, in the meaning of the rule of law on this subject. And the only question is, whether the subsequent confessions admitted by the court were produced by the same motive which is supposed to have produced the first; or whether the court was justified in believing, from the length of time intervening, or from proper warning of the consequences of confession, or from other circumstances, that the delusive hopes, under the influence of which the original confession is supposed to have been obtained, were entirely dispelled. In the absence of any such circumstances, the influence of the motive proved to have been offered will be presumed to continue and to have produced the subsequent confessions, unless the contrary is shown by clear evidence. Thompson's case, 20 Gratt. 724; 2 Russ. on Crimes, 838; Greenl. Ev. 257. But the contrary may be shown by clear evidence, and the subsequent confessions are in that case admissible. The only question is, whether the contrary is so shown in this case?

The confession was made to Hulce on the morning of, and before the examination of the prisoner before the police justice. The subsequent confessions were made on the morning when the prisoner was brought to jail, after his examination before the police justice. It does not appear that he was carried to jail on the same day of his examination, though he no doubt was. So that there must have been but a short interval of time, perhaps less than a day, between his first and last confessions.

The statement in the bill of exceptions in regard to the last confessions is, that after the first confession was ruled out " the Commonwealth introduced a witness, one Charles Jones, a colored man, who is...