178 So. 472 | Miss. | 1938
This is an appeal from the circuit court of Lee county from a conviction of arson, and a sentence to serve ten years in the state penitentiary imposed upon the appellant.
A confession of the crime was introduced in evidence over the objection of the appellant on the ground that it was obtained under duress. A preliminary inquiry was held by the court as to whether or not the confession had been freely and voluntarily made. The trial court found from the facts that this written confession had *773 been freely and voluntarily given, and there is ample testimony to sustain this finding.
But it was also contended by the appellant that it was error to admit the confession, for the further reason that it contained an admission of guilt of a separate and distinct offense to that charged in the indictment. However, the record discloses that when the trial court ruled that the confession was admissible, it was then stated by the district attorney, in open court, that there were parts of the statement which did not involve things connected with the particular case, and which might not be admissible. Thereupon the court ruled out a part of the written statement and did not allow the parts so stricken to go before the jury. No specific objection was made to the admissibility of the confession on the specific ground that there was left in the statement a certain admission to the effect that the appellant had stolen the whisky which he was drinking on the night the crime was committed, the only objection in the court below being that the confession had been obtained by duress.
The failure of the trial court to also strike this statement of the appellant about stealing the whisky, when eliminating other irrelevant matter, was evidently due to an oversight, since this particular objection was not called to the attention of the court, and it is raised for the first time on this appeal. It is the general rule that a confession containing admission of guilt of a separate offense, and independent of the one inquired into, is not admissible, Baygents v. State,
We are of the opinion that the confession when considered *774
in connection with all of the other facts and circumstances testified to was ample to establish that the fire was of incendiary origin, and that the defendant was guilty of the crime for which he was convicted. Heard v. State,
Affirmed.