36 Ala. 211 | Ala. | 1860
The prisoner was arraigned, and pleaded “not guilty,” at the term of the court at which he was indicted. Upon his last trial, he stood mute; and the court caused the plea of not guilty to be entered, against the objection of his counsel. In this there was no reversible error. It is not conceivable that the prisoner could have sustained the slightest detriment from the course adopted by the court.
It is a rule of great strictness, that if a confession has once been obtaiued by undue means, no subsequent confessions of like character are evidence, unless it is shown that the influence has been removed. — Bob v. The State, 32 Ala. 560. This rule would be applicable, and might have a controlling influence, if the slave had yielded to his master’s inducement, and made a confession to the master. The question is, however, not whether an in
To the argument that the confessions were promised in order to procure an opportunity to sleep, and afterwards made in fulfillment of that promise, we cannot assent. The testimony very clearly shows that the prisoner sent for the witness Carson ; that he asked an opportunity to sleep, in order that he might compose his mind; and that he voluntarily requested the witness to return in an hour, in order that he might talk with him. The opportunity of sleeping was not afforded upon condition that he would confess, but was asked because, in the perturbed and distressed state of his mind, the prisoner needed the composure which sleep would bring to fit him for the interview which he desired.
There was nothing said by either of the witnesses, Carson or Jennings, calculated to produce upon the prisoner’s mind the belief that it would either be worse for him to withhold his confession, or better for him to make it. His confessions seem to have been prompted by a sense of religious duty, awakened by the apprehension of a speedy execution at the hands of lawless violence, and were not the result of the slightest hope of temporal benefit on account of the confessions. We decide, therefore, that the court below committed no errorin admitting in evidence the confessions made to the witnesses Carson and Jennings.
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the cause remanded ; ana the prisoner must remain in custody, until discharged by clue course of law.