MacHen v. State
MacHen v. State
Opinion of the Court
The state, over the objection of the defendant, was permitted to prove certain statements made by the defendant Will Machen in the nature of a confession. It appears that the statements were made under the following conditions: About four or five days after the goods had been stolen, and while a crowd of men were looking for the defendants, the crowd being armed with guns, and a report was abroad, which had come to the knowledge of the defendant, that, when arrested, the defendant would be placed in jail without bond, the defendant, who was hiding out in the river bottom, sent for the witness Jones, who was supposed to be his friend, and who was1 on a bond for him in another matter. When Jones got to where the defendant was, Jones told the defendant this:
“That, if he would just tell the whole thing, it would be better for him, as it come up like it had; that is, they found the stuff at his place, and was pretty close to him, and I told him I believed I would just tell if.”
Jones further testified that the defendant said he would not mind coming in, but knew they would send him to jail under the circumstances, and he did not want to go to jail, and in the conversation Jones promised to help defendant make his bond, or something like that. It was further shown, by the *171 witness Jim Smith, that Machen said that if they would make his bond, and not make him go to jail, he would turn up all the guilty parties in that transaction. Further on in his testimony, Jim Smith testified that Machen again told him that he did not want to go to jail. The confession that was finally testified to by George Jones was as follows:
“He said that Olin Wilbanks and Lige Mur-, phy had taken the stuff, and on Tuesday he moved it. He told me that he had helped to move it on Tuesday night, or a few nights after that, and placed it up at his mother’s barn.”
It appears from the testimony that the one fear uppermost in the mind of the defendant Machen was that he would be placed in jail without bail, and his desire was, or seemed to be, to secure a bondsman or bondsmen before he would give himself up, or before he would consent to make any statement regarding the crime. The alleged confession was objected to by defendant’s counsel, and exception reserved. In passing upon this question, this court cannot do better than to quote from the decision in the case of Wilson v. State, 110 Ala. 5, 20 South. 415, where Mr. Chief Justice Brickell so aptly says:
“The confession of guilt, or the admission of facts having a tendency to establish guilt, made by the accused after he is charged with, or is conscious of being suspected of, crime, is not a species of evidence the common law favors. ‘Nemo tenetur seipsum accusure' is its inflexible maxim, a shield of protection, so that, as Blackstone puts it, ‘his guilt be not run out of himself, but rather be discovered by other means and other men.’ 4 Blackstone Commentaries, 296.”
For the errors above pointed out, the judgment of the trial court must be reversed, and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- MACHEN Et Al. v. STATE
- Cited By
- 11 cases
- Status
- Published