Case ID: miss_82/html/0421-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Caehoon, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Henry Wright v. State of Mississippi.
    Criminal Law. Confession. Writing. Parol evidence. General objection.
    
    Tlie introduction by the state of parol evidence of a written confession of crime will not constitute reversible error if no objection be made, nor will an objection made in terms so general as to obscure rather than present the point avail in such case.
    From the circuit court of Warren county.
    Hon. George Anderson, Judge.
    Wright, appellant, was indicted, tried and convicted of wrecking a railroad train, Oode 1892, sec. 1266, and appealed to the supreme court.
    On the trial it was shown that defendant had made a confession, which had been taken down by a stenographer, and written out and signed by defendant. This writing, which was shown to have been in court, in the possession of the district attorney, was not introduced in evidence, but oral evidence was introduced to prove the same confession.
    The course of - procedure in respect to the matter in the court below is stated in the opinion.
    
      D. Marshall and B. B. Mount, for appellant.
    The confessions were written down and in possession of the court, and hence no oral evidence of the same could be introduced.
    
      In Peter’s Case, 4 Smed.- & M., 31, the court says that it was error to allow a justice of the peace to testify from recollection of confession taken down in writing, when there was no evidence of the loss of the writing, and no other satisfactory legal reason for not producing it.
    In the present case, not only was there no evidence that the confession of whose contents Smith and Landau testify was not lost, but it was shown to be in the possession of the state at the very time of the trial. Roscoe on Criminal Evidence lays down the same principle. • He says: “If the confession is taken down in writing and signed by the prisoner, .... then it is put in as an ordinary document and read by the officer of the court. According to general principles, if the confession was contained in a document, which was in existence and admissible in evidence parol evidence could not be given of it. 1 Roscoe Criminal Evidence (8th ed.), 90; 2 Taylor’s Evidence, ch. 10; Wright v. State, 50 Miss., 332.
    
      J. N. Flowers, assistant attorney general, for appellee.
    No objection was made in the court below to the oral testimony of the confession on the ground that the same had been written down, and the state was not called upon to produce the writing. It is true one witness, Landau, was asked if the confession had not been written out and signed by the accused, and if it was not then in their possession, and the witness answered that it had been written and was in their possession, but it does not appear that the defense insisted that it be produced. Hence these objections will hardly'be considered here.
   Caehoon, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

On consideration of the admissibility of evidence of a confession, in the absence of the jury, the state produced five witnesses. Early in the testimony of the first of these, it appeared that the confession was taken down by a stenographer. These stenographic notes, extended, were shown to be in court. All the evidence showed that the confession was in writing, signed by the defendant, but no objection was made to the oral testimony. The defendant then introduced two witnesses and rested. So the whole testimony covers more than ten pages of this typewritten record. There had been up to this time no hint of any objection. Then, however, we find in the record these words, “The defense here moved that all of the testimony taken by the state be excluded,” with no suggestion of the ground on which the motion was based, and which was overruled. To reverse for this would be to encourage an intolerable practice. The whole examination was then gone over with the jury in the box, with full cross-examination, as it was before the court-in the first instance, without any objection, when, at the end of prolix examinations of witnesses about the confession, we find another general motion to exclude, with no reason given. Courts have some rights and the public has some rights in the disposition of public business. This court will take notice of rulings on objections to questions in the examination of witnesses, currently made, when no reason for the objection is given, if the reason be obvious. But it will not do so in an instance like this, where the objection, however obvious, comes, at the end of tedious examinations, in a motion to exclude. Moreover, here it must be assumed that no hurt could possibly have been done the defendant. The writing was there in court, subject to the demand of either side, and it was not produced to show any variance' from the oral evidence. Astute counsel would have done this if they saw any help in it. ,

Affirmed.