Evening star., 1943-12-03
bidd|e Criticiizes
Broad Useof
|McNabb RuIinq
Tells House Group
He Believes Courts
Here Are Too Strict
BY J. A. FOX.

District of Columbia courts, in
common with those elsewhere In
the country, have been giving too
broad an application to the Nc
Nabb rule laid down by the Su-
preme Court, in excluding volun-
tary confessions in. criminal
cases because of delay in ar
raigning the defendants, Attor-
Iney General Biddle told a House
judiciary subcommittee today.
Testifying on the bill of Repre-
| sentative Hobbs, Democrat, of Ala
bama to relieve courts of the neces-
sity of considering the time-of ar
raisnment factor when passing on
the admissibility of confessions in
evidence. Mr.. Biddle cited a number
I of instances in which he believed
confessions had been Improperly ex-
cluded.
Il confess I am unable to under
stand why the trial courts should
exhibit the passion for excluding
statements which some of these de-
cisions reveal, knowing that the pre-
else confines of the McNabb de-
cision remain to be charted by the
Supreme Court" he added.
WithhoIds Approval.
| Mr.. Biddle withheld his approval
of the Hobbs bill, declaring that
even with its passage, Federal Of
ficers still would be forced to COM
ply with exceedingly stringent ar
lraignment rules" and that the situa-
ton would not be satisfactory from
the standpoint of the Justice De-
tpartment.
He suggested, as an alternative.
that Congress supplant the present
variable statutes covering arraign-
ment with a uniform law providing
prisoners be brought before a COM
mitting magistrate within a rea-
sonable time" after arrest.
! The Supreme Court Advisory
Committee had proposed the ar
raignment standard be without
unnecessary delay" but Mr.. Biddle
said within a reasonable time"
would provide more flexibility.
Sees Warning Possible.
Such standard" he continued,
would assist materially in the typi-
cal situations where arraignment
seems to me to be justifiably de-
layed, namely, in cases where ar
raignment of one of a number OF
suspected persons will operate tc
forewarn those of the accompnce,
who have not yet been arrested.
Such was the case, for example
with the eight saboteurs (six OF
whom were executed here) and ex.
actly that situation was presented,
l am advised, in a number OF i'm
portant kidnapping cases which the
Federal Bureau Of Investigation has
succeeded in breaking in recent
years.
"A reasonable time standard would
seem to justify delay for such pur-
poses and to achieve such ends"
Involved Murder Case.
The McNabb case involved the
murder conviction of three Tennes-
see mountain youths which was set
aside by the Supreme Court on the
ground they had been held too long
for questioning before arraignment
after the shooting of a revenue
agent. A companion case, known as
the Anderson case, was decided the
same day by the court and the con-
viction OF several men for destruc-
ton OF property was reversed.
! The immediate aftermath of the
case here was reversal by the Court
OF Appeals of the conviction Of
James P. Mitchell, so-called society
burglar" who was linked with more
than 80 cases of housebreaking. and
sentenced to prison. Mitchell ac-
cording to the police, confessed i'm