Case Title: Dunn v. State

Citation: 547 So. 2d 42

Docket Number: 

State: mississippi

Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Date: 1989-06-28T00:00:00Z

Document:
547 So. 2d 42 (1989) Melvin L. DUNN v. STATE of Mississippi. No. 58526. Supreme Court of Mississippi. June 28, 1989. Trent L. Howell, Water Valley, for appellant. Mike Moore, Atty. Gen. by Deirdre D. McCrory, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee. EN BANC. HAWKINS, Presiding Justice, for the Court: Melvin L. Dunn appeals from his Union County circuit court conviction of arson of a dwelling. Because of the erroneous admission into evidence of his confession, given after promises and intimations of help from a law enforcement officer, we reverse and remand. Dunn was employed as an emergency room technician at the Union County Hospital on February 3, 1986. He and his wife Molly were separated. The two owned a residence on 514 Madison Street in New Albany. Shortly before midnight that night their house was discovered afire. No one was at home at the time. Dunn was located at his parents' home in Yalobusha County and informed of the fire. He and his parents returned to New Albany. They went to the police station, and thence to the fire station and talked with fire chief Bill McGill, who detected the smell of gasoline on Dunn's shoes. While Dunn was at the fire station a second call came in that the house was again on fire. Dunn returned with his parents to Yalobusha County. McGill was suspicious of the fire being of incendiary origin, and notified Mike Ivy, a state fire marshal. Dunn and David Grisham, the chief of police of New Albany, were personally acquainted, having known one another for approximately five or six years. Mrs. Grisham also worked at the emergency "department," according to Dunn. On February 5, around noon, Grisham called Dunn (who had returned to work) to come to the New Albany police station for questioning. There he was given a form Miranda warning at 12:45 p.m., and questioned about the fire. He denied having set the fire. Dunn was then taken to Tupelo where he was given a polygraph examination at the Tupelo City Hall by Jerry Crocker, detective with the Tupelo police department. The test indicated Dunn was lying. He was informed that the test showed he was *43 not telling the truth. Dunn admitted orally setting the house on fire, and was then taken to the Tupelo police department where he was again given the Miranda warning, and again gave a statement, reduced to writing, in which he admitted setting the house on fire. Ivy typed the written confession. Dunn was indicted by the Union County grand jury on February 20, 1986, for feloniously and maliciously setting fire to the house belonging to him and his wife, a crime under Miss. Code Ann. § 97-17-1 (1972). At a hearing on the motion to suppress both the oral and written confession, it developed that Grisham had taken Dunn aside before they went to Tupelo and after he had taken the polygraph, and attempted to persuade him to tell the truth about the fire. Grisham testified as follows: Dunn testified as follows: Dunn was tried on September 4-5, 1986, following which the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and he was sentenced to three years, with three years supervised probation. Dunn raises several assignments of error, none of which we find persuasive except his claim that his confession should have been excluded. Long before Miranda warnings were mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court, it *45 was well settled in Mississippi jurisprudence that a confession given after promises of leniency was incompetent as evidence. In Mitchell v. State, 24 So. 312 ((Miss. 1898), we held that a confession given by a defendant was not voluntarily made subsequent to his being told by the sheriff that it would be "best for him to tell all about it." In Johnson v. State, 89 Miss. 773, 776, 52 So. 606 (1907), a private citizen told the defendant he would intercede with the trial judge to keep him from being hanged, and "also had told appellant that it would be better for him to confess, as it would go lighter with him if he told the truth." Upon appeal, we held the confessions "clearly inadmissible, under the doctrine as settled in this state." In Mathews v. State, 102 Miss. 549, 59 So. 842 (1912), a black defendant fourteen years of age accused of stealing an item of jewelry had been told by the town marshal that it would be better for him to get the pin, if he would tell the truth, "it would be all right," and "I don't want to put you in any trouble." We held the confessions subsequently made were not free and voluntary. In Robinson v. State, 247 Miss. 609, 613, 157 So. 2d 49, 51 (1963), we held a confession was inadmissible as evidence after the defendant had been told the "best thing to do is come square with the State, of the City, whoever the crime was against," and that the others implicated had confessed, and "the thing to do is to be square with yourself, not only with us but with the Man Upstairs, and if you don't do that, you are not trying to help yourself." We stated: 157 So. 2d at 51. In Agee v. State, 185 So. 2d 671, 674 ((Miss. 1966), we held: "A confession made after the accused has been offered some hope of reward if he will confess or tell the truth cannot be said to be voluntary." In Miller v. State, 243 So. 2d 558 (Miss. 1971), the defendant was arrested for stealing a calf. Following his arrest the sheriff told the defendant and his mother, who wanted to get him out of jail, that he would let the boy go to the house, to be back the next morning, "and he might better tell the truth about the thing, he would be better off." The next morning the defendant returned and confessed the theft. We held: Id. at 559. In the recent case of Layne v. State, 542 So. 2d 237 (Miss. 1989), we were troubled by a patrolman's telling the accused that "the best policy would be to tell the truth." However, at the suppression hearing, the defendant offered no evidence that this statement made to him by the patrolman had anything to do with his confession. *46 We give great deference to the finding of a circuit judge that a confession was freely and voluntarily made, it being his function at the trial level to make this determination. Frost v. State, 483 So. 2d 1345, 1350 (Miss. 1986); Layne v. State, supra. We must hold in this case, however, that the learned judge erred in admitting the confession. This case is analogous to Miller v. State, supra. Dunn was personally acquainted with Grisham, worked with Mrs. Grisham at the hospital, and obviously had a great deal of confidence and trust in this officer. We can only conclude that under the circumstances of this case the statements made to Dunn, especially that he "would do what ever was legal with my realms to help," induced the confessions. And, contrary to Layne v. State, Dunn testified that Grisham's statements were an inducement to his confessions. The confessions being inadmissible, this cause is reversed and remanded. REVERSED AND REMANDED. ROY NOBLE LEE, C.J., DAN M. LEE, P.J., and PRATHER, ROBERTSON, SULLIVAN, PITTMAN and BLASS, JJ., concur. ANDERSON, J., dissents without written opinion.