Simon, a slave, v. The State of Mississippi. HANDY, J., delivered the opinion of the court. The plaintiff in error was indicted, tried, and convicted, for the murder of another slave in the county of Copiah. In the course of the trial, the State offered several witnesses to prove that the accused had made confessions of his guilt, under the following circumstances : It appears that the accused and the deceased were the slaves of one Lot W. Ellis, and that, early in the morning of the 23d of June, 1857, the deceased was found lying on the floor of the cabin in which he slept, wrapped in his bedclothes and speechless, having four severe wounds on the head sufficient to produce death, and of which he soon died; and an axe helve was found near, having on it the appearance of fresh blood, and there being a good deal of blood on the floor. A boy, named Hiram, belonging to the same master, had been run away for several days, and another boy and the accused had also run away on the night previous, or early in the morning, on which the deceased was found wounded. Pursuit was immediately made with dogs for the runaways, and the boy Andy was caught about four miles from the place, and the accused was pursued about two miles further, when he was found in the Bayou Pierre, up to his chin in the water, and having a scythe blade in his hand, which, by direction of the person in pursuit of him, he threw from him to the edge of the water, and obeying the order of the same person, came out. When he came out he was struck upon the head a severe blow, and was seized and bitten by the dogs. About the time the dogs were taken off from him, Willis Ellis, a brother of his master, came up, being ignorant of the circumstances above stated, and he was then told by the person who pursued the accused, in the presence of the accused, that the boy had been killed, and that Hiram was suspected of having committed the act. Willis Ellis then asked the accused why he had run away, and the accused not answering, he struck at the accused with his fist, and said to him that he would knock him down if he did not talk to him. The accused was then taken back by these persons the same way that his pursuers had come; and during that time Willis Ellis asked him "what he knew of Hiram's killing Norvell;" adding, at the same time, and before he answered, "It will be better for you to tell the whole truth about the matter, or about it," and the ac Simon, a slave, v. The State of Mississippi. He cused thereupon said: "Hiram did not kill Norvell; I killed him;" and proceeded to say that he killed him by striking him four blows on the head with an axe helve, as he lay on the floor in the cabin. He was then taken to the house of Willis Ellis, where soon after George Ellis came; and being told that the accused had killed Norvell, he inquired of him why he had done so, and he replied that he had done it because the deceased had told lies on him. was then taken to his master's place, and was met by him and two other persons, and Hatley, who had pursued and taken him, told them that there was the murderer, meaning the accused; and in answer to inquiries made of him, he made substantially the same confession that he had originally made to Willis Ellis. All these statements were made by him in the presence of Hatley, who was armed, and had with him his negro dogs. He afterwards made a like confession to two other persons in the presence of Lot W. Ellis. Objection was made in behalf of the accused, to the introduction of these confessions, because they were made under undue influences; but the Court overruled the objection, and permitted them to be given in evidence; to which exception was taken. The propriety of the judgment depends upon the admission of this testimony, and the instructions granted or refused by the court in relation to it. It is a very familiar and well-established rule, that a confession is not admissible in evidence, unless it is made freely and voluntarily, without restraint, and without hope of reward or fear of punishment; and so strictly has this rule been enforced, that confessions, made after very slight expressions calculated to convey to the mind of the party confessing, that he would obtain any benefit, or escape any punishment, if he would confess, have been held inadmissible. And this rule has been applied to all statements made by a prisoner under such circumstances, which may charge him criminally, though in terms they apply to another person, or even purport to be a refusal to confess. Roscoe Crim. Ev. 39 (4th edit.) The reason, then, of the rule is, that the confessions are not free and voluntary, but obtained by legal constraint, and are, therefore, not to be received as evidence of the truth; and this principle applies as well to declarations made in relation to the guilt of others, so far as such declarations may be admissible, as to confessions of Simon, a slave, v. The State of Mississippi. the prisoner in relation to himself. For the test is, not whether the declarations or confessions affect the party himself, but whether they are obtained by such legal constraint as to show that they were not freely and voluntarily made. This view of the question meets the ground on which the confessions made by the accused to Willis Ellis, are contended to be admissible. That position is, that nothing was said to the accused to induce him to make confessions of his own guilt; that he was only required to tell the truth in relation to the guilt of the boy Hiram; and that he was told that "he had better tell the whole truth" in relation to Hiram's act in the matter. Conceding that this was the purport of what was said to him before he made the confessions, still, it does not obviate the objection, that he was thereby placed under intimidation, and induced to make the confessions which he did make. The confessions are presumed to have been made in consequence of the appeal to his hopes and fears, and cannot, therefore, be said to be the act of his own free will, and entitled to be taken as evidence against him. But the admonition given to him was sufficiently broad to comprehend the entire subject of the killing of Norvell. When asked what he knew of Hiram's killing Norvell, he was at the same time warned that "he had better tell the whole truth about the matter, or about it." This was a distinct warning that he had better tell the whole truth in relation to the killing of Norvell; and the influence of the threat was as great to induce him to state all he knew about it, if he or any one else committed the act, as it would have been if it had been done by Hiram, as was supposed by the persons interrogating him. He was required to tell the whole truth, whatever it might be, about the killing, and was induced to do so, by what is in law such undue influence, as renders the confession thereby obtained, inadmissible. We are, therefore, satisfied that the original confession made to Willis Ellis, was inadmissible, and should not have been permitted to be given in evidence. The subsequent confessions to the same effect were made quickly after the original confession, and when one or more of the same persons were present, to whom the first confession was made; and the circumstances of time, place, and presence, under which the sub Simon, a slave, v. The State of Mississippi. sequent declarations were made, are such as to show that they were made under the same constraint which caused the original confession. Peter v. The State, 4 S. & M. 31. The subsequent confessions were, therefore, also inadmissible. Under this view of the evidence, it is unnecessary to consider the rulings of the court, in relation to the instructions upon the point of the confessions. For the erroneous admission of the confessions, the judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial. NOTE. This case was decided at the April Term, A. D. 1858, and reported with the cases of that term; but the MS. was lost or mislaid. This case was again in this court, and will be found reported in 36 Miss. R. 636. On the subject of confessions, see Van Buren v. The State, 24 Miss. 516; Peter v. The State, 4 S. & M. 31; Jordan v. The State, 32 Miss. 382; Belote v. The State, 36 Ib. 77; Brown v. The State, 32 Ib. 433; Dick v. The State, 30 Ib. 593; Serpentine v. The State, 1 How. 256; Peter v. The State, 3 How. 433. 37 296 c72 524 37 296 le84 547 Alfred, a slave, v. The State. OCTOBER TERM, 1859. ALFRED (a Slave) v. THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI. 1. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: DIVISION OF COUNTY FOR HOLDING CIRCUIT COUrt.— The legislature of this State has the constitutional power to provide for a division of a county into two districts, and the holding of a Circuit Court in each; and where this is done, it may also be provided that the grand and petit jurors for each district, shall be taken alone from that district in which the court is held in which they are required to serve, and not from the whole body of the county. 2. CIRCUIT LAW: JUROR: COMPETENCY OF: BIAS.-A juror is not impartial, and therefore not competent, who has formed an opinion in reference to the guilt or innocence of the accused, which it would require testimony to remove; notwithstanding, he may declare in his examination, that he has no fixed bias in his mind either for or against the prisoner. See Lewis v. The State, 9 S. & M. 119; Childress v. Ford, 10 Id. 30; Same v. The State, 13 Id. 189; Nelms v. The State, Id. 500; Cotton v. The State, 31 Miss. R. 509; Williams v. The State, 32 Id. 398; Ogle v. The State, 33 Id. 383. 3. CONFESSIONS: CASE IN JUDGMENT.-A slave confessed to a stranger, in the absence of the master, that he had killed the deceased. In two or three minutes thereafter the master arrived, and the slave confessed the killing to him, stating his reasons for doing the act. Held, that the introduction in evidence against the slave of the first confession, did not authorize him to introduce in evidence, on his own behalf, the second. 4. CRIMINAL LAW: SLAVERY: ADULTERY WITH SLAVE'S WIFE, NO DEFENCE TO A CHARGE OF MURDER.—A slave, indicted for the murder of his overseer, cannot introduce as evidence in his defence, the fact that the deceased a few hours before the killing, had forced the prisoner's wife to submit to sexual intercourse with him, and that this had been communicated to the prisoner before the killing. ERROR to the Circuit of Hinds county. judge. Hon. John Watts, The plaintiff in error was indicted in the court below for the murder of one Coleman, to which he pleaded not guilty. A special |