Court Opinion

ID: 9575025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:10:45.116398+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:48.839742
License: Public Domain

Duckworth, Chief Justice
dissenting. If the verdict of guilty had been rendered without errors of law having been committed during the trial preceding that verdict, I would be the first to affirm the conviction. But to me no higher or more solemn duty rests upon this court than that of seeing that executions of persons come only after a conviction of a crime for which that penalty is provided by law, after a trial free from errors of law. The evidence of guilt of a cold-blooded murder is abundant in *339this record. But the trial judge erroneously charged on the law of confession, when, as a matter of law, there was no confession in this case. The proven statement of the accused is extremely incriminating and might have contributed materially to the conviction and properly so, yet it is not a confession. It does not admit the material allegations of the indictment which is essential to a confession. It neither admits shooting the deceased, nor that he was killed thereby. Let the State take life when the law so provides, but by all means let it do so in strict accord with the law.