Title: State v. Fabian

State: mississippi

Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court

Document:

263 So. 2d 773 (1972) STATE of Mississippi v. Bobby J. FABIAN. No. 46762. Supreme Court of Mississippi. May 29, 1972. *774 A.F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by Marshall G. Bennett and Edwin A. Snyder, Sp. Asst. Attys. Gen., Jackson, for appellant. Garner, Whitten & Garner, Jon B. Love, Hernando, for appellee. SUGG, Justice. Bobby J. Fabian, appellee and cross-appellant hereinafter referred to as appellee, was indicted by the Grand Jury of Marshall County, Mississippi for the murder of George Lenox. Appellee filed a motion to quash the indictment for lack of jurisdiction and assigned the following grounds: When the motion to quash came on for hearing, appellee refused to offer evidence in support of his motion and the Circuit Court overruled the motion. The Court, on its own motion, inquired into the question raised by the motion to quash, and, after a lengthy hearing, held that it did not have jurisdiction because the proof did not show beyond a reasonable doubt that the fatal shots which killed decedent were fired in the State of Mississippi. *775 Appellee also filed a motion to suppress a confession signed by him on January 21, 1971 including any statements or admissions made by him. The court overruled the motion to suppress the confession and appellee filed a cross-appeal from this action of the court. The first question to be considered is whether or not the court was correct in its preliminary examination of the question of venue. Under Mississippi criminal procedure, questions of fact as to venue are for the determination of the jury and are not to be decided by the trial court. An accused who, by motion, seeks to challenge the venue of the court on the ground the crime charged was committed in another state or another circuit court district, is not entitled, as a matter of right, to have a preliminary evidentiary hearing with a determination by the trial court of the question raised in advance of trial. Rare and exceptional circumstances might justify the trial court, in the exercise of sound judicial discretion, in granting a hearing upon such a motion. In such an event, the burden of going forward must rest upon the movant, and the motion should be denied if the evidence adduced, whether pro or con, would be capable of supporting a factual finding by the jury on the trial that venue of the crime was as charged in the indictment. Upon the failure or refusal of the movant to go forward with proof in support of his motion, it should be overruled. For the purpose of such a hearing, an indictment establishes a prima facie case that the crime was committed at the place charged therein. In the present case, the court correctly overruled the motion of accused because of his refusal to offer any evidence whatever. The Court elected, in the exercise of its judicial discretion, after overruling the motion, to inquire preliminarily into the question of its jurisdiction based upon venue. In such cases, the court need only determine that there is relevant and competent evidence supporting the allegations of the indictment with respect to venue and that this evidence is sufficient to warrant submission of the issue to the jury for determination. This is true, of course, where countervailing evidence is offered. If there is no evidence whatever supporting the allegation of venue, then the court will dismiss the case for that reason without prejudice to try the case in the court having venue. The procedure adopted in this case is novel and hitherto unknown to Mississippi criminal practice and procedure. While its use is not to be entirely excluded, and it must be regarded as a matter lying within the range of the permissible exercise of sound judicial discretion, it should be permitted only rarely and under the most exceptional circumstances. We next consider the evidence adduced at the hearing and the applicable law to determine if the Court erred in holding that the State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lenox was killed in Marshall County, Mississippi. The body of decedent was found in the State of Mississippi and the evidence showed that he died as a result of two gunshot wounds fired by a pistol. In other jurisdictions the rule has been announced that the finding of a dead body in a particular county raises a presumption, or supports an inference, that the killing took place there. Another well known presumption is that life, like any other condition, continues until there is evidence to the contrary.[1] We adopt both presumptions as a rule in Mississippi. *776 In United States v. Rees, 193 F. Supp. 849 (Md. 1961) the United States District Court stated: [11] This is an entirely different presumption than the presumption of death after seven years. In 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 185(17) the rule is stated as follows: The presumption that death occurs where a body is found coupled with the other evidence heard by the court was sufficient to establish the venue of the crime in Marshall County, Mississippi. The proof of venue was by circumstantial evidence. In Poore v. State, 205 Miss. 528, 37 So. 2d 3, suggestion of error overruled, 205 Miss. 528, 37 So. 2d 357, certiorari denied 336 U.S. 992, 69 S. Ct. 656, 93 L. Ed. 1084, rehearing denied, 336 U.S. 947, 69 S. Ct. 810, 93 L. Ed. 1104 (1948), we held that venue can be proved either by direct or circumstantial evidence. We are not unmindful of the rule in Mississippi that when venue is shown by circumstantial evidence it must be shown to the exclusion of every other reasonable hypothesis. See Dorsey v. State, 141 Miss. 600, 106 So. 827 (1926); Ussery v. State, 154 Miss. 704, 123 So. 854 (1929); and Kitchens v. State, 186 Miss. 443, 191 So. 116 (1939). In Presley v. State, 217 Miss. 112, 63 So. 2d 551 (1950) the Court reaffirmed the rule that proof of venue, as any other element of an offense, must be made beyond a reasonable doubt and when circumstantial evidence is relied upon to prove venue, it must not only be consistent with the theory sought to be proven, but must be absolutely inconsistent with any other theory as pointed out in Ussery. The presumption that the killing took place where the body was found is a *777 rebuttable presumption; however, when this fact is shown the state has met all requirements of venue in a murder case to that point. If evidence is offered to rebut this presumption, the question of venue is a matter for the jury to determine under proper instructions. Section 2430 of the Mississippi Code of 1942 Annotated (1956) provides: Section 2430, supra, was held constitutional in Caldwell v. State, 176 Miss. 80, 167 So. 779 (1936). Appellee attacks the constitutionality of Section 2430, supra, on the ground that the United States Supreme Court has, since the decision in Caldwell, supra, held that the first eight Amendments to the United States Constitution apply to states by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. Crapps v. State, 221 So. 2d 722 (Miss. 1969). Appellee states in his brief that he has been unable to find any case directly in point in support of his argument that Section 2430, supra, is unconstitutional because it violates the provisions of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Our research does not reveal a case precisly in point but in Willis v. O'Brien, 151 W. Va. 628, 153 S.E.2d 178 (1967), certiorari denied, 389 U.S. 848, 88 S. Ct. 71, 19 L. Ed. 2d 116, rehearing denied, 389 U.S. 997, 88 S. Ct. 461, 19 L. Ed. 2d 499, appellant was convicted of murder in Ohio County, West Virginia because of a criminal abortion performed by him upon the deceased in Brooke County, West Virginia and death resulted therefrom in Ohio County. The West Virginia Court in passing on this case stated as follows: In 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 185(17) at pages 478 and 479 the following appears: Although Willis, supra, dealt with a crime where death and the act causing it occurred in the same state, the constitutional right of the accused to "a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed ..." (emphasis added) as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, was not violated by his trial in the county where death occurred rather *779 than in the county where the act causing death was performed. The same reasoning should apply when the act causing death is performed in one state and death ensues in another state. Of course an accused cannot be tried for the same crime in two different courts and where each have jurisdiction the court in which proceedings are first begun should proceed. In 40 Am.Jur.2d, Homicide, § 199 the general rule is stated as follows: We hold that there is no constitutional objection to Section 2430 extending the jurisdiction of Mississippi to embrace a prosecution for murder based on injuries inflicted without the state where the death occurs within the state. The provisions of Section 2430 coupled with the presumption that a person was killed in the State and County where the body was found operate to minimize one escaping punishment for murder because he is clever enough to conceal the place where the victim was killed or died. Appellee and cross-appellant urges that the trial court erred in overruling his motion to suppress his written confession of January 21, 1971 and among other things claimed: On January 21, 1971 appellee was interrogated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary located at Angola, Louisiana by Rex Armistead, Chief Investigator for the Mississippi Highway Patrol, Daniel I. Davis, Assistant Chief Investigator for the Mississippi Highway Patrol and Marshall Bennett, Chief of Organized Crime Section, Criminal Division of the Attorney General's Office of the State of Mississippi. Before these officers questioned appellee they read to him and appellee signed a statement which fully complies with the Miranda warning. Appellee made an oral confession to the three interrogators and after his oral confession, Mrs. Linda Stone, secretary to Rex Armistead, made stenographic notes of the second confession of appellee. Her stenographic notes were typed in the presence of appellee and as each page was completed it was read and signed by appellee who then signed the entire confession which consisted of five typewritten pages. *780 The evidence shows that Rex Armistead had talked to appellee on two previous occasions, the first being in June, 1970 shortly after appellee was apprehended in Louisiana. At the first conversation, Inspector Dan Jones and Captain Bill Maley of the Shelby County Sheriff's Department were present with Rex Armistead. Appellee did not confess the Lenox murder as the result of this questioning. Rex Armistead next saw and talked to appellee at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in the presence of John Dan Moulder, a Lieutenant of the Jackson, Mississippi Police Department (at some places in the transcript the name of the Lieutenant of the Jackson, Mississippi Police Department appears as Lieutenant John Dan Moore). The witness Armistead stated that Fabian was advised of his rights and made an oral statement to him and Lieutenant John Dan Moulder. Appellee's testimony with reference to his conversation with witness Armistead and Lieutenant Moulder is as follows: Appellee stated that he signed a confession in October, 1970 for Jones and Maley, officers from Tennessee, and the confession was signed on the basis of certain promises made to him at that time by these officers. Appellee claims that the Tennessee officers promised to pay him money and that Jones paid him $1,000 on July 7th and wired him an additional $1,000 in October, 1970 before he went to trial in Rayfield, Louisiana. Appellee contends that Rex Armistead promised that if he would sign a confession that he (appellee) would be a trusty and Armistead would get his sentence commuted. He also claims that the Mississippi officers offered him leniency and that he told them about Dan Jones, the Tennessee officer, paying him $1,000. With reference to the promises made to him before he signed the January 21, 1971 *781 confession a question to the appellee and his response was as follows: In Armstrong v. State, 214 So. 2d 589 (Miss. 1968) this Court stated: Appellee contends on appeal that the court erred in not admitting his testimony of offer of money and promises of leniency made to him by officers from Tennessee which prompted his confession to them in October, 1970, and relies on Ladner v. State, 231 Miss. 445, 449, 95 So. 2d 468, 470 (1957), where we stated: Although the Tennessee confession was not before it, the court was in error in not considering the testimony of appellee as to the promises made by the Tennessee officers; however, if the testimony of appellee pertaining to the Tennessee confession is accorded full credence, the record is clear that the confession made to the Mississippi officers three months later was free and clear of influences and inducements made by the Tennessee officers. The testimony clearly meets the tests of Ladner, supra, and it was not necessary *782 for the State to have the Tennessee officers present to testify. Appellee had his rights explained to him prior to the January 21, 1971 confession and knowingly and intelligently waived his rights to an attorney and expressed his willingness to answer questions and make a statement. Appellee signed a waiver entitled "Your Rights" which shows conclusively that he was aware of his constitutional rights. It is crystal clear that the Mississippi officers did not make any promises to appellee that would render his confession inadmissible. We are convinced that his confession to the Mississippi officers was freely and voluntarily made. The ruling of the trial judge with reference to the motion to suppress the written confession of appellee is affirmed. The case is reversed on direct appeal, affirmed on cross-appeal and remanded for trial. Reversed on direct appeal, affirmed on cross-appeal and remanded for trial. RODGERS, P.J., and PATTERSON, SMITH and ROBERTSON, JJ., concur. [1] As noted in United States v. Rees, infra, this is an entirely different presumption from the presumption of death after seven years absence. See Sections 1698 and 1698-01, Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated (1956).