Court Opinion

ID: 9668616
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:19:20.12597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:46.443264
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
BELCHER, Judge.
Appellant now contends for the first time on appeal that the trial court erred in refusing to give his specially requested charge or to respond to his objections for its failure to instruct the jury that, in determining whether his written statement was voluntary, they must also decide whether the statement was made without persuasion.
The court also refused to give appellant’s requested instruction which was as follows:
“You are instructed that the word ‘persuasion’ as used in this charge, has its ordinary meaning of influencing the mind by means of arguments and reasons.”
For reversal, the appellant relies on the holding in Odis v. State, 345 S.W. 2d 529. An examination of the Odis case shows that he testified in his own behalf, and his testimony raised the issue of whether his written statement was made without compulsion or persuasion. Therefore, the refusal of the court to instruct the jury that they could not consider the written statement unless they found that it was made without compulsion or persuasion was prejudicial to his rights and called for a reversal.
*592The appellant did not testify in this case. A re-examination of the record does not show that the issue of persuasion was raised by the evidence except that appellant was told to “tell the truth”. This admonition is not the type of inducement which would require a rejection of a confession. Smith v. State, 237 S.W. 265.
The court, in charging the jury on the voluntary nature of appellant’s written confession, included certain legal standards for determining its admissibility and consideration, and such charge reads in part as follows:
“If you believe from the evidence or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof that the said purported statement was not freely and voluntarily made and signed by the defendant, or that same was made as a result of coercion, compulsion or force either physical or mental, then you will not consider said statement for any purpose whatsoever.”
The refusal of the requested charge, in the absence of any evidence raising the issue that the written statement was obtained from the appellant by persuasion, presents no error. McCraw v. State, 202 S.W. 2d 240.,
In the original opinion, it was not intended to infer, as construed by appellant, that appellant was not interrogated while in custody under a name other than his own. It is true that appellant was interrogated at Ranger Headquarters after he had been placed in jail in Humble under such name, but as stated in the original opinion, he was not interrogated while under confinement in the Humble jail. It is again concluded that the officers’ action in placing appellant in jail under a name other than his own does not, in view of the totality of the facts, constitute a deprivation of due process.
Appellant attacks the holding in the original opinion that there was no evidence of causal connection “between the failure to secure a warrant and take the accused forthwith before a magistrate and the securing of the confession.”
A review of the evidence sustains the conclusion that there was no showing of causal connection between the arrest and failure to take appellant before a magistrate and the making of the written statement.
*593The motion for rehearing is overruled.
Opinion approved by the Court.