Court Opinion

ID: 9651536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:24:50.135527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:35.168273
License: Public Domain

RUDKIN and DIETRICH, Circuit Judges
(concurring in part).  We concur in the foregoing opinion of Judge GILBERT, except as to the competency or admissibility of tbe confession made by the appellant at tbe morgue, or of any repetition of that confession. It appears from the testimony that the appellant admitted or confessed to different persons a,t different times during the day of the homicide that he had killed the deceased by striking- him on the head with an ax, but these admissions or confessions were invariably coupled with a claim that the deceased had assaulted the appellant with a knife, and that the appellant had struck the fatal blow in self-defense. Among others to whom such a confession was made was a special agent of the Department of Justice. This agent frankly admitted that the appellant stuck to this story consistently, and that he could not break him down until he took him to the morgue at about 3 o’clock in the morning, and kept him there in tho presence of tho dead body for nearly an hour. All of the authorities agree that a confession, in order to be admissible, must be free and voluntary; that is, must not be extracted by any sorb of threats or violence, nor obtained by any direct or implied promises, however slight, nor by the exertion of any improper influence. Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532, 542, 18 S. Ct. 183, 42 L. Ed. 568.
In this ease there were no- promises and no threats, but we are constrained to hold that there was an exertion of improper influence. If the appellant had been taken to the scone of tho crime before the wounded Indian had been removed, and before any change had taken place in the surroundings there, we can understand how ho might have confessed, seeing the apparent futility of attempting to convince any one that he had struck the fatal blow in self-defense and then dragged the body inside the house and placed it on tho bed, wrapped as it was when last seen a few hours before the homicide. But there was nothing at the morgue to contradict his story, and no reason for changing it unless it was the gruesome surroundings and the presence of the dead body. Indeed, we are at a loss to understand why the prisoner was taken to the morgue at all at that unseemly hour of the night, unless the agent knew something of the Indian character, and believed that he would break down and confess in the presence of the dead body of his victim. But, whatever prompted tho appellant to confess, whether it was superstition or fear, or something akin thereto-, we are not convinced that the confession was free and voluntary, as those terms have been uniformly defined by the courts. Indeed, it seems to us that the conduct of the special agent in this ease was far more subject to criticism and condemnation than was the conduct of tho officer to whom the confession was made in the Bram Case. Nothing can he added to the thorough discussion of the subject of confessions to be there found. After a somewhat extended investigation of the subject, we have found but a single instance where an officer took a prisoner to the morgue to register tho reaction, and in that case the conduct of the officer was well described by -an able-*864judge as “the theatrical, dime-novel folly of an overzealous officer.” Miller v. Territory of Washington, 3 Wash. T. 554-580, 19 P. 50.
For error in the admission of testimony, the judgment is reversed, and the ease is remanded for a new trial.