Reports of Cases Determined by the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri Volume 266 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1916 Excerpt: ... State v. PowelL lar and in proper form the judgment must be affirmed. It is so ordered. Walker, J., concurs; Faris, P. J., not sitting. THE STATE v. FEATHERSTONE POWELL, Appellant. Division Two, November 30, 1915. 1. CONFESSiON: Law of Case. A ruling upon a former appeal that a written confession obtained by the police captain and other officers from defendant was ae a matter of law not voluntary and therefore inadmissible, becomes the law of the case on a second trial, unless a different state of facts is shown. 2.: Swearing Away Legal Defects. Legal defects which arose from the State's affirmative proof and which as a matter of law destroyed the voluntary character of defendant's alleged confession on the former trial, cannot be sworn away by the same witnesses upon the second trial without a commission of perjury. If the facts pertaining to the voluntary character of the confession were fully developed at the first trial, a holding that, upon the State's own showing, the confession was not voluntary and therefore inadmissible, became the law of the case on a second trial. 8.: Other Oral Confessions. But tha inadmlssibillty of that written confession, obtained by policemen after continually "sweating" defendant for eleven hours, does not affect the admissibility of a prior oral confession made to a special officer which was not involved in the former ruling. 4.: Guilt Dependent Upon. Considerations of justice demand that great caution should be used and great exactness required in determining the admissibility of a confession by defendant where without that confession there is no substantial evidence of his guilt; and especially should that caution be observed where the confession contains a statement of fact which is conclusively shown to be false. Appeal f...