Court Opinion

ID: 9854061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:00:13.567759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:53.867315
License: Public Domain

Lewis, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
I agree that the trial judge properly permitted the cross-examination of Karen Tinsley as a hostile witness, but disagree with the holding that error was committed in the admission of the incriminating letters written by appellant. These letters, in my opinion, were properly admitted into evidence and I would therefore affirm the judgment under appeal.
At the time appellant was placed in jail, he signed a card authorizing jail officials to read his mail. The record sustains the inference that this was done in accordance with the usual practice of the prison, as a means of enforcing prison security and discipline and in order to give notice to the prisoner that prison officials would “scan the mail, in*504going and out-going.” This right to censor a prisoner’s mail is generally upheld by the courts and is not questioned here.
Appellant contends, however, in this appeal,- that the State obtained the letters in question -in violation of his rights under, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.- He argues that the letters were illegally obtained by the detective who was permitted by the jailer to read and photograph the letters to use as evidence at the trial. There -is no merit to this contention.
The details of the circumstances surrounding the signing of -the card, agreeing to censorship, are not shown in this record. Appellant makes no .claim however that this card was not signed voluntarily and understandingly. The record does show conclusively however' that appellant voluntarily wrote the letters jn question and turned them over to the prison officials whom he had previously authorized to read his mail. There is no basis, under these circumstances, to hold that the letters were obtained by an unconstitutional search and seizure. As stated in State v. Johnson, Mo., 456 S. W. (2d) 1, 3 and 476 S. W. (2d) 516, 518: “In the final analysis, he himself laid in front of the jailer that which he now seeks to preserve as private:”
Under similar facts, the United States Supreme Court, in Stroud v. United States, 251 U. S. 15, 40 S. Ct. 50, 64 L. Ed. 103, held that there was no unlawful seizure. The court stated in Stroud:
“Certain letters were offered in evidence at the trial containing expressions tending to establish the guilt of the accused. These letters were written by him after the homicide and while he was an inmate of the penitentiary at Leavenworth. They were voluntarily written, and under the practice and discipline of the prison were turned over ultimately to the warden, who furnished them to the district attorney. . . . In this instance the letters were voluntarily written, no threat or coercion was used to obtain them, nor were they seized without process. They came into the possession of *505the officials of the penitentiary under established practice, reasonably designed to promote the discipline of the institution. Under such circumstances there was neither testimony required of the accused, nor unreasonable search and seizure, in violation of his constitutional rights.”
I would affirm the judgment.