Court Opinion

ID: 9794454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:05:58.038701+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:13:51.041555
License: Public Domain

LATIMER, Justice
(concurring in the results).
I concur in the results.
This case points, up the difficulties a state would en*591counter in the detection and prosecution of crimes if we were to adopt the rule that failure to take an accused before a magistrate without delay would render a prior voluntary confession inadmissible. It may be thát some of the United States Supreme Court cases cited by Mr. Justice WADE hold that under the Federal rules of practice delay alone is sufficient, but I sense in those cases an underlying concept that the delay must in some degree influence the giving of the confession. It is difficult to reason that failure to proceed forthwith to a magistrate reverts back and destroys the effect of a prior voluntary confession, which, having been given, cannot be influenced by the delay.
In this case, the twenty-day lapse between the confession and arraignment played no part in causing the defendant to confess, and the time he was incarcerated prior to his confession was not because of improper or illegal acts of the arresting officer. He was arrested on August 14, 1949, for interstate transportation of a stolen automobile. Two days later, he was interviewed by Federal Bureau of Investigation officers and on the 20th day of August he was charged with violation of the Dyer act, 18 U. S. C. A. §§ 2811 — 2313. On August 22nd, he was arraigned before a Federal Commissioner, and three days later pleaded not guilty to the charge. He had the benefit of counsel during these proceedings. While awaiting trial on the federal offense, he voluntarily confessed to having committed a murder in the state of Montana. In an effort to verify the statements made in this confession, he was taken to Montana and then returned to Ogden on September 6, 1949. The state of Montana preferred murder charges against him on September 8th, and a warrant of arrest on this charge was furnished to the sheriff of Weber County at Ogden. Upon receipt of the warrant of arrest for murder, and apparently to permit the defendant to be extradited to Montana, the federal authorities dismissed *592the federal offense. While being held for delivery to the state of Montana, and on the 10th day of September, 1949, the defendant, at his own request, made a full and complete confession of the murder in this case. On the 12th day of September, he voluntarily accompanied officers to the scene of the crime to re-enact the murder and to point out the places where he had secreted the articles of apparel worn by the young victim of his murder.
Undoubtedly, there was some unaccountable delay after the confession and before the defendant was taken before a committing magistrate of this state to plead to the present charge, but I am unable to comprehend how this, in any way, caused or coerced him to confess to the crime. This' delay, if unnecessary, was subsequent to his statement of guilt. Moreover, there was not a single day prior to his confession that the defendant was unnecessarily confined. He was under felony charges at all times, and he makes no contention that he could have furnished a bail bond. It would be stretching the doctrine of the inadmissibility of involuntary confessions to its breaking point to hold that an accused being held for one offense could not confess to another. Fundamental and constitutional rights of a defendant can be protected without denying law enforcement agencies the right to obtain and use voluntary confessions which, even though given while in custody, embody expressions of free choice and from the evidence were apparently freely and voluntarily given.