Opinion
(April Term, 1797.)
Confessions, whether extorted or not, that relate a number of circumstances, all of which are proved by other testimony actually to exist, are admissible against the prisoner.
INDICTMENT for murder, and not guilty pleaded. Upon trial, it appeared the body was found near Wadesboro, and as the deceased and Moore were seen together a few days before, the suspicions of the neighborhood fell upon him. Two men pursued him, and in the neighborhood where he resided met him in an old field, returning home from the house of a neighbor. They tied him and ordered him to produce the deceased's money. He produced some immediately, and promised to carry them to the place where the residue was. He carried them into a swamp and showed the residue. They struck him, when they first met him for denying that he had killed the deceased; upon (483) which he owned it, and said he struck him with a hickory club, standing on his left side as the deceased rode along the road; that he dragged the body out of the road, and left the club lying by it; that he covered the body with brush, in a place where the road formerly ran, about 10 or 12 yards from the present road. These circumstances were all now proven to be true, and actually to have existed as he then represented them. He promised to show them where the saddlebags and clothes of the deceased were, and about four miles from the place where the body was found he pointed to a log lying not far from the road, and said the bags were in that; the witness went and found the bags there, and the clothes of the deceased, and produced them now in court; and they were proven in court to be the bags and clothes of the deceased.
The prisoner's counsel objected that there was no evidence in the present case to affect the prisoner, without the aid of his confession. The money, the club, and the bags are only of weight as they correspond with the confession, and by that means prove a consciousness and knowledge of the principal fact, whence is inferred the guilt of the prisoner. The confession in the present instance ought not to be received as any part of the evidence against the prisoner; it was extorted by violence, and ought not to have been heard; and having been heard improperly, it ought to be rejected, and then there is no proof against him.
A confession extorted and uncorroborated by circumstances weighs nothing; but a confessions, whether extorted or not, that relates a number of circumstances which the prisoner could not well be acquainted with but as perpetrator of the crime, all of which circumstances are proved by other testimony to have actually existed, is such testimony as should be left to the consideration of a jury. That is the nature of the confession in the present case; and upon such testimony, if the jury are satisfied with its truth and sufficiency, they may find the prisoner guilty. They should be very cautious, however, and examine every circumstance with the most critical nicety before they do so.
The jury found him guilty, and he had judgment of death.
NOTE. — In this case the saddle bags were pointed to voluntarily. Also, part of the money produced before any blow given.
See S. v. Long, ante, 455; S. v. Roberts, 12. N.C. 259.
Cited: S. v. Cruse, 74 N.C. 492; S. v. Lowry, 170 N.C. 733.
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