Weatherford v. State

• Decision Date: 24 October 1932
• Docket Number: 30156
• Citation: 143 So. 853,164 Miss. 888
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: WEATHERFORD v. STATE

143 So. 853

164 Miss. 888

WEATHERFORD v. STATE

No. 30156

Supreme Court of Mississippi

October 24, 1932

APPEAL from circuit court of Lamar county.

(In Banc.)

1. CRIMINAL LAW.

In murder prosecution, confession held properly admitted where at time there was nothing to show that it was not free and voluntary.

2. CRIMINAL LAW.

If confession had been wrongfully admitted error was rendered harmless by defendant's taking stand himself and testifying to same facts related in confession.

3 HOMICIDE.

In murder prosecution, defendant's mental condition and his responsibility for acts and understanding of nature of acts were for jury on conflicting evidence.

4 HOMICIDE.

Question whether one convicted of murder should be hanged or sent to penitentiary for life held for jury.

HON. J Q. LANGSTON, Judge.

HON. J Q. LANGSTON, Judge.

W. R. (Boss) Weatherford was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Affirmed.

A. Q. Broadus, of Purvis, for appellant.

The evidence as a whole shows beyond every reasonable doubt that the alleged confessions were not free and voluntary.

It is a well settled principle of law that in determining if or not a confession is free and voluntary that all the facts and circumstances must be taken into consideration, and included in these facts and circumstances are:

The mental condition of the accused.

The dependency of the accused upon the person to whom the confession is alleged to have been made.

The fear, if any, which the accused entertains toward the person to whom the confession is made.

Whether or not the accused is in prison or under arrest.

If or not the accused has been threatened by the person to whom the confession is made, or by other persons for the benefit of the person to whom the confession is made.

If there have been guns exhibited or other deadly weapons which might have the same effect and influence as threats.

Harsh words in which the accused is disputed and called a liar.

Any kind of inducement.

Hope of reward or other undue influence.

In order to make competent a confession of guilt by a defendant charged with crime, the evidence of such confession must be so strong as to exclude every reasonable doubt that it was procured from the defendant under a threat of punishment, or a promise of reward. It must exclude every reasonable doubt that the confession was freely and voluntarily made.

Ellis v. State, 65 Miss. 44, 3 So. 188, 7 Am. St. Rep. 634; Williams v. State, 72 Miss. 117, 16 So. 296; State v. Smith, 72 Miss. 420, 18 So. 482; Johnson v. State, 107 Miss. 196, 66 So. 218, 51 L.R.A. (N.S.) 1183.

Where a confession is made under the influence of threats or the hope of reward, a subsequent confession will not be admissible in evidence until such influence is shown to have been removed.

Whitley v. State, 78 Miss. 255, 28 So. 852, 53 L.R.A. 402, note; Reason v. State, 94 Miss. 290, 48 So. 820; Mackmaster v. State, 82 Miss. 459, 34 So. 156.

When a confession of a defendant is offered in evidence the court should ascertain by preliminary examination, conducted out of the presence and hearing of the jury, if requested, whether the proposed confession was made voluntarily.

Simmons v. State, 61 Miss. 243.

A voluntary confession is one proceeding from the spontaneous operation of the party's own mind, free from the influence of any extraneous disturbing cause.

Johnson v. State, 65 So. 218; Fisher v. State, 110 So. 361.

The State's own evidence shows that the appellant worked at the home of the deceased and that he did and acted, just about like the average high grade imbecile would act.

It would be a stranger doctrine which would hold that, because an accused had testified to a certain fact, no other testimony is to be received in his behalf in corroboration of that fact that it is no error, or else is only harmless error, to exclude this corroborating testimony. Under such a doctrine an accused must either not testify at all, or, if he elects to do so, then he must stand alone.

Prewitt v. State, 126 So. 825.

It is a well settled principle of law that every person is presumed to be sane, but that in the trial of a case where the question of the sanity of the defendant is raised, the burden is on the state to show beyond every reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that the defendant was, first, mentally capable of committing a crime, and second, he committed the crime charged in the indictment.

W. D. Conn, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.

In the trial of this case, as well as in this appeal, we have at least two very anomalous situations. First, appellant is asking this court to reverse and remand his conviction, because certain confessions are allegedly inadmissible, because he, at the time of making them, "was in a state of fear and that duress, coercion, implied threats and hope of protection were the dominant elements employed" by the officers who heard his confession and at the same time the record shows conclusively that he took the witness stand voluntarily in his own behalf, covered the entire subject-matter contained in the confession, went more into detail and told the whole story and made out one of the most remarkably cold-blooded assassinations with which this court has every had to deal. If the confessions were entirely obliterated, if all the testimony for the state was torn from the record, the evidence that would still remain would, beyond the least shadow of a doubt, warrant the extreme penalty imposed upon him for his transgression.

It appears that this confession was obtained by questioning and nothing else, if the state's witnesses are believed.

A confession, in other respects admissible, is not inadmissible because it is not a spontaneous utterance of the prisoner. The fact that the confession was obtained by the employment of persistent questioning does not alone exclude it, if the confession emanates from the free will of the accused and without inducement or hope or fear.

Underhill's Cr. Ev. (3 Ed.), sec. 232; United States v. Matthews, F. Cas. 15741-b; St. v. Penny, 113 Iowa 691, 84 N.W. 509; Young v. State, 90 Md. 579, 45 A. 531; Cox v. People, 80 N.Y. 500; Tidwell v. State, 40 Tex. Cr. 38, 47 S.W. 466, 48 S.W. 184; Aiken v. State, 64 S.W. 57; Ariola v. State, 79 Tex. Cr. 80, 183 S.W. 144.

The second confession was shown to be free and voluntary and there is nothing to contradict the testimony of the state. It clearly appears that if the first confession was obtained as appellant said it was, it was from fear of mob violence, and it clearly appears that at the time of making the second confession there was no hint or intimation from any witness, including appellant himself, that there was any threat of mob violence. It clearly appears, therefore, that any taint surrounding the first confession has disappeared as to the second and there is no dispute as to the voluntary character of the second confession, except by counsel for appellant in his brief.

Appellant further complains that these confessions were inadmissible because he was not warned as to his right to keep silent. This question has heretofore been settled by this court.

Carothers v. State, 121 Miss. 762, 83 So. 809.

In the absence of a statute, requiring caution or warning, a perfectly voluntary confession is admissible.

Corpus Juris (16 C. J. 724); Simon v. State, 36 Miss. 363; Dick v. State, 30 Miss. 598.

In the case of Ross. v. State, 158 Miss. 827, 131 So. 367, this court held as follows: "Even though the appellant's confession to the county prosecuting attorney and the sheriff's deputies was not voluntary, its admission in evidence was without any harm whatever to the appellant, because he testified as a witness in his own behalf, and his evidence, in substance amounted to a plea of guilty of murder as charged.

Prine v. State, 158 Miss. 435, 130 So. 687; Goodman v. State, 158 Miss. 269, 130 So. 285; Sanders v. State, 158 Miss. 234, 130 So. 112; Rawls v. State, 152 Miss. 885, 120 So. 211; Parkinson v. State, 145 Miss. 237, 110 So. 513.

On the question of motive, it is interesting to note that the threat of deceased was a conditional one in that he said, as appellant said, that he would kill appellant unless he should agree to commit further larcenies with him, and not a direct, positive threat. The court classified threats of this kind in the case of Stroud v. State, 131 Miss. 875, 95 So. 738.

All the law governing the state's case does not have to be embodied in one instruction and the matter of whether or not the defendant had sufficient mind to appreciate the difference between moral right and wrong is fully covered by an instruction having been given at the request of the state.

It is clearly the law in this state that a person, regardless of how low his mentality is, is accountable for his act, if he is able to distinguish between moral right and wrong and knows the consequences of his act.

Argued orally by A. Q. Broadus, for appellant, and by W. D. Conn., Jr., for the State.

OPINION

Ethridge, J.

The appellant was tried and convicted for the murder of John Dearman and sentenced to be hanged.

About eleven years prior to the killing, the appellant went to live with Dearman remaining there a number of years. In 1931, the appellant left Dearman's home and made a crop near Wiggins in Stone county, but returned to the home of the deceased in the fall of 1931. Dearman, the deceased, was killed on the night of December 26, 1931, while sitting before his fire in a cane bottomed chair near a window, in such a position that his right side was visible from the outside of the window. Two shots were fired from the outside into the head of...