Court Opinion

ID: 9648130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:04:06.924201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:56.631031
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
MORRISON, Presiding Judge.
It is appellant’s principal position on rehearing that his confession was inadmissible as a matter of law. If this court is convinced that under the holdings of the Supreme Court of the United States a confession is inadmissible as a matter of law, we do not hesitate to so hold. Davis v. State, 165 Tex. Cr. Rep. 456, 308 S. W. 2d 880. Before discussing the cases upon which appellant relies, we deem it appropriate to call attention to certain facts not discussed in our original opinion.
Appellant was a laboratory technician for the Texas Highway Department. He was arrested in Canada in the late afternoon of June 20; that night he made a statement in writing concerning this offense, after having been given the statutory warning required by Canadian law. There is no proof in this record as to the laws of Canada, and this statement was not offered in evidence. The next morning, appellant waived extradition, and when the officers from Texas arrived in Canada at 10:00 P.M. on June 21 appellant was delivered to them. A newspaper reporter from Texas had preceded them and was at the jail in Canada when they arrived. Appellant was represented by an attorney while he was in Canada. Late in the afternoon of June 22, the Texas officers talked to appellant at the jail in Holton, Maine, where he had been placed the night before, and he made a statement in which he denied the killings. They then took appellant to the airport and flew to Texas. They were accompanied on this trip by one or more newspaper reporters from Texas who were covering the story. Early the next morning, the party was met at the Houston, Texas, airport by appellant’s mother and his attorney, and appellant had a private conversation with both of them. He was then carried to the police department, where he had another private conversation with his mother and his attorney.
*541The body of Clifford Barnes had already been found in Fort Bend County, but the officers carried him to the vicinity “to see if he could show me where he threw the body.” He was also shown some pictures of the body of the woman who had been killed. From this we conclude that the officers were attempting to determine whether they had the actual culprit or a mental defective who had read about a spectacular case in the newspapers and insisted that he committed the crime. They were met at the scene by the local justice of the peace. They then went to Galveston “to see if he was telling the truth about what happened in Galveston,” and then returned to Houston by the middle of the afternoon. They were accompanied on this trip by Dr. Dwyer, the county psychiatrist, who was seeking to determine “whether or not he was a person of sound or unsound mind,” and they met a number of newspaper and television reporters during the course of their journey.
Appellant was not shown to have been questioned any more that day. The following morning, appellant again conferred with his mother.
Late in the afternoon of the following day, appellant told the officer to whom he had made the statement in Holton, Maine, that he wanted to make another statement. The officer called appellant’s attorney, who came to the jail, conferred privately with appellant, and then later in the evening the statement which was introduced in evidence was dictated by appellant to Mrs. Fisher, an employee at the courthouse, who transcribed the same and brought it back for appellant’s signature, following which appellant was interviewed by the newspaper and television reporters and was then placed back in jail. The following day, the court entered an order granting appellant’s then attorney leave to withdraw from the case.
With these facts as a background, we will attempt to distinguish the case at bar from those upon which appellant relies.
In Brown v. State of Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 80 L. ed. 682, 56 S.Ct. 461, counsel was appointed to defend Brown and his co-indictee one day, and the trial was held the following day. In the case at bar, appellant was indicted on June 26, 1958; a motion to quash the indictment was filed in September by the two able lawyers who defended appellant, and he was tried in January, 1959. In Brown, there was evidence of physical brutality. In the case at bar, there was none. In Brown, the *542accuseds were illiterate members of the Negro race. In this case, appellant, a white man, was shown to have the equivalent of a high school education and was employed by the state in what appeared to have been a responsible position.
In Chambers v. State of Florida, 309 U.S. 227, 84 L. ed. 716, 60 S.Ct. 472, the accuseds were held a week and not permitted to confer with counsel or friend. In the case at bar, appellant was represented by counsel in Canada, was met by his mother and counsel of her own choosing at the airport when they arrived in Texas, and conferred with them privately on more than one occasion prior to making the confession.
In Ashcraft v. State of Tennessee, 322 U.S. 143, 88 L. ed. 1192, 64 S.Ct. 921, Ashcraft was held incommunicado and questioned continuously in relays for 36 hours. As stated above, appellant conferred privately with his attorney just a few hours before he signed the confession.
In Haley v. State of Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 92 L. ed. 224, 68 S.Ct. 302, Haley was a 15-year-old Negro, while in the case at bar appellant had served a full term of enlistment in the Army, was 5' 11" in height, and weighted 180 pounds.
In Leyra v. Denno, 347 U.S. 556, 98 L.ed. 948, 74 S.Ct. 716, the confession which was introduced was taken very shortly after the taking of a prior confession which the state court had held inadmissible because induced by promises of leniency. The Supreme Court of the United States held both confessions were “parts of one continuous process” and were inadmissible because Leyra was physically exhausted and emotionally upset after attending his parents’ funeral. We fail to see how it could be considered as authority here. The fact that Dr. Dwyer was present at the time the confession was made does not make this case controlling because appellant had already told Officer Doss that he wanted to make another statement some time before Dr. Dwyer arrived at the interrogation room.
In Fikes v. State of Alabama, 352 U.S. 191, 1 L. ed. 2d 246, 77 S.Ct. 553, Fikes was of sub-normal intelligence and was taken to the State prison, where he was held in solitary confinement; his father was not permitted to visit him, nor was his attorney. What we have heretofore said, we think, distinguishes the case at bar from Fikes.
*543In Payne v. State of Arkansas, 356 U.S. 2 L.ed 2d 975, 78 S.Ct. 844, Payne, an illiterate Negro, was held incommunicado for two days while he was being questioned; members of his family who came to see him were turned away. Payne asked to use the telephone, but permission was refused; he was not fed and was threatened with mob violence. None of these elements appears in the case at bar.
In Spano v. People of the State of New York, 360 U.S. 315, 3 L.ed. 2d 1265, 79 S.Ct. 1202, Spano, after being indicted, was denied permission to see his attorney, was moved from place to place, and through deceit a member of the police force who had been a long standing friend of Spano’s played upon the prisoner’s sympathy and induced him to confess. No such facts are before us here.
In Blackburn v. State of Alabama, 361 U.S. 199, 4 L.ed. 2d 242, 80 S.Ct. 274, Blackburn had a long history of mental illness, plus amnesia, and testified that he remembered nothing about the confession. The defense of insanity was not interposed in the case at bar.
While we have discussed the facts in the cases cited only briefly, we have concluded that the statement of the facts in the case before us here clearly demonstrates that none of the authorites relied upon is here controlling.
The other contentions raised were properly disposed of on original submission.
Believing as we do that the confession here is not inadmissible as a matter of law, appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.