24 Gratt. 639 | Va. | 1873
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a writ of ei’ror 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 (Hulee) had been excluded by the court, no doubt because it was obtained by á 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 auy 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 ai’e in that case admissible. The only question is, whether the contrary is so shown in this case?
The confession was made to Hulee on the morning of, and before the examination of the prisoner before the
The statement in the bill of exceptions in regard to the last confessions is, that after the first confession was ruled out “the Commonwealth inü’oduced a witness, one Charles Jones, a colored man, who is cook at the jail, who testified that on the morning when prisoner was brought to jail witness asked the officer who had just brought him to jail, one Michaels, what prisoner was there for; to which the officer replied, for the murder of Mary Holmes, and he believed he had confessed it; to which witness said: ‘ I reckon not; he certainly wouldn’t be such a fool as to confess it.’ The officer said, ‘Yes, and he wrould do it now if I would let him; ’ and thereupon the prisoner said: ‘Yes, I did it.’ The officer, Michaels, who took the prisoner to jail, stated that the prisoner seemed to be frightened and trembling while the officer was taking him to jail, and seemed to be agitated when he got to the jail; he was near by when prisoner and Jones were talking; did not hear his confession; paid no attention to the conversation between them. And thereupon the Commonwealth introduced another witness, Lucy Kinney, a colored woman, who testified that she was an inmate of the jail, being detained there for nonpayment of a fine; that she knew Horace Venable well, and knew deceased also; that Horace Venable lived at her mother’s house for a long while; that on the morning when he was brought to the jail, after his examination before the police justice, she was washing the porch of the jail; that she spoke to prisoner and said: ‘Hello,
"We think it clearly appears from the foregoing statement that after the prisoner made his first confession, and before he made his subsequent ones, he was duly warned against making any confession. The first confession was
"We are of opinion that there is no error in the judgment, and that it ought to be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.