State v. Collins

217 So. 2d 182, 253 La. 149, 1968 La. LEXIS 2545
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedDecember 16, 1968
DocketNo. 49266
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 217 So. 2d 182 (State v. Collins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Collins, 217 So. 2d 182, 253 La. 149, 1968 La. LEXIS 2545 (La. 1968).

Opinions

McCALEB, Justice.

Appellant and one Judith White, two young Negroes, were indicted by the Grand Jury for the Parish of East Baton Rouge for the murder of Charles Bashful.

Judith White was granted a severance and, thereafter, appellant was tried and found guilty as charged by the jury. Following imposition of the death sentence, he prosecuted this appeal, relying on ten of the fourteen bills of exceptions reserved at the trial for a reversal of his conviction. The facts essential to a discussion of the bills are as follows:

Charles Bashful, an 82 year old Negro man, was found brutally beaten with a crowbar at his home in Baton Rouge on the night of December 5, 1964. He died from the injuries sustained by him some two weeks later without ever having regained consciousness. Missing from his home was a P-38 caliber pistol, a portable television, a ring and a watch. Forcible entry was allegedly secured into the Bashful dwelling by the breaking of a windowpane in a door on the porch.

On December 18, 1964 the police were summoned to investigate a complaint of disorderly conduct by two Negroes, a man named Latimore and one Louise Washington. When arrested Latimore was found in possession of a pistol which, upon investigation, was discovered to be the P-38 taken in the Bashful burglary. Upon interrogation respecting the ownership of the pistol, Louise Washington told the officers that another Negro named Jerry Plartford had brought it to her a few days before her arrest and requested that she hold it for him. The police located Jerry Plartford, and he informed them that he had secured the pistol from appellant, James Collins, who hocked it to Hartford for $12.00. The police then apprehended appellant on December 18, 1964 and brought him to the city police station for questioning.

The exact time of the beginning of the interrogation of appellant is not certain, but all officers involved therein agree that it began around 9:00 or 9:30 P.M. on the night of December 18, 1964 and continued, with certain interruptions made necessary to check on appellant’s statements to the officers, until about 4:00 A.M. of Decern[153]*153ber 19, at which time appellant gave a certain inculpatory written statement as to his participation in the burglary of the Bashful residence with Judith White, culminating in the infliction of the fatal blows administered to Bashful from which he subsequently died.1

Although, as stated above, appellant’s counsel are relying on ten of the fourteen bills of exceptions, which they have grouped into three special contentions in this Court, the most important of all, in fact the only complaint which may have merit, is directed to the admissibility of the inculpatory statement given by appellant at about 4:00 o’clock on the morning of December 19, 1964. The bills referring to the admissibility of this statement are numbers 9, 10, 12 and 13, and attached thereto and made part thereof is all of the evidence taken at the laying of the foundation for the admission of the statement and also to the overruling of counsel’s objections to the reception of the statement in evidence before the jury.

In approaching discussion of the admissibility of the inculpatory statement, it is to be borne in mind that the Bill of Rights of our Constitution provides in Section 11 of Article I that no person shall be compelled to give evidence against himself in a criminal case “ * * * or in any proceeding that may subject him to criminal prosecution, * * * ” and it further declares, “No person under arrest shall be subjected to any treatment designed by effect on body or mind to compel confession of crime; nor shall any confession be used against any person accused of crime unless freely and voluntarily made.” 2

Under this provision and R.S. 15:452 quoted in full in footnote two an.d R.S. 15:451,3 this Court has held in a long list of cases too numerous to cite that the burden of proof rests with the state to show by a clear preponderance of evidence (and in some cases it is held that the state is obliged to establish beyond a reasonable doubt — see State v. Honeycutt, 216 La. 610, 44 So.2d 313; State v. Ferguson, 240 La. 593, 124 So.2d 558 [on rehearing] and authorities there cited; and State v. Carter, 248 La. 730, 181 So.2d 763) that the inculpatory statement in all of its aspects was freely and voluntarily given. Furthermore, since the trial of this case began on May [155]*15510, 1965, subsequent to the ruling of the Supreme Court in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977, but before Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, it is subject to the guidelines set forth in the former but not to those pronounced in the latter.

The testimony adduced by the state, outside of the presence of the jury, to establish the voluntariness of the inculpatory, statement given by appellant consists of the evidence of Detectives Rouse and Sansone of the Baton Rouge Police Force, who interrogated appellant in Room 120 at the city police station from approximately 9:30 P. M. of December 18, 1964 until 4:00 A.M. the following morning, when Officer Rouse wrote down appellant’s statement of complicity in the perpetration of the crime. The gist of these officers’ testimony is that appellant gave the statement voluntarily, and that he was not subjected to any intimidation, menaces, improper treatment or inducements which is, in reality, their conclusion from the facts elicited from their narration of the circumstances under which the statement was secured.

However, the two officers, who had complete charge in the questioning, do not agree with each other as to certain facts-For example, Detective Rouse stated that during the interrogation, which lasted intermittently for a period of over six hours, appellant said he had acquired the pistol, which had been taken from the decedent’s home, from another Negro named Louis Clark, who was known as “Crow.” tie further declared that appellant had emphatically denied participation in the burglary of the decedent’s home until between 3:00 and 4:00 o’clock in the morning when other police officers located Crow in the Parish Jail and brought him over to the interrogation room where Crow confronted appellant. This confrontation, according to Detective Rouse, caused appellant to abruptly change his story4 and agree to give the inculpatory statement.

[157]*157Detective Sansone, on the other hand, after stating that he and Rouse were the officers in charge of the interrogation of appellant, and that the latter gave the statement voluntarily following hours of questioning, denied during his sworn statement, out of the presence of the jury, that there was any confrontation between Crow and appellant whatsoever, despite the fact that' Rouse had testified that it was this confrontation which prompted appellant to give the statement.

However, after the judge ruled the statement was admissible, Sansone appeared on the witness stand before the jury and identified the statement as being freely given. At this time, he changed the story he had given when the state was laying the foundation for the admission of the confession in evidence.

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Related

State v. Mora
307 So. 2d 317 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1975)
State v. Holmes
281 So. 2d 704 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1973)

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Bluebook (online)
217 So. 2d 182, 253 La. 149, 1968 La. LEXIS 2545, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-collins-la-1968.