Gould v. State

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant, a Negro convicted of the rape of a white woman by the court sitting without a jury, claims that his confession was involuntary because obtained by a threat to charge him with another crime of which he was innocent and, so, was improperly admitted into evidence to his prejudice. On a February night in 1962 Miss Margaret Antone, a recluse living in Cecilton, was dragged from her home, badly ⁴⁴¹ beaten about the head and face and raped while unconscious by two assailants, who left her, still unconscious, in the outhouse behind her dwelling. She has been since confined in institutions as a result of the attack and was not able to identify her attackers or testify at the trial.

Gould, the appellant, fled the State. On April 1, 1962, he returned and went to the county jail at Elkton and said he wished to give himself up. He then gave a statement, saying he “would like to get it off his chest * * In the statement, the voluntariness of which is not challenged, he said he drove from a beer garden with one Jenkins to the Antone house, and when the lady in the house came to the door, Jenkins “grabbed” her, and he, Gould, helped to hold her, put his hand over her mouth and dragged her out in the yard, where Jenkins raped her. Afterward, he and Jenkins carried her to the outside toilet and left her.

He thought she was dead when they left her. Gould was placed in jail. He and Jenkins, when confronted, each blamed the other for the beating and the rape; and each agreed to take a lie detector test. It was arranged that the tests be given by a State police expert on interrogations, one Sergeant Lough, at the State Police Barracks in North East.

On April 6, Gould was to go to the Barracks for the test. He decided he did not want to go, and the sheriff of Cecil County informed Lough, who replied, “Bring him down anyway.” Gould then unprotestingly made the trip. He arrived at about twelve-thirty p. m., was put in a cell and given lunch. At one-thirty he went into a room with Lough, who interrogated him for about an hour, and then gave him a polygraph test.

The sheriff testified that Gould submitted to the interrogations and the test of his own free will and accord, after he had been told he did not have to do so unless he was willing. Lough’s testimony was that he advised Gould that no one need take a polygraph test except voluntarily, that he could leave the room and be returned to the sheriff’s custody any time he wished, and that it was after this advice that Gould voluntarily signed an agreement to take the test. After Lough’s interview was finished, he, Gould, and the sheriff went into another room where Gould gave a statement ⁴⁴² which Lough typed. It recites that he is suspected of the Antone rape, that he has a right to answer and an equal right to refuse to answer any question, and that any answer or statement must be given freely, voluntarily and of his own will and desire, with no promise of reward and no threat having been made, and with full knowledge that anything he said could and would be used against him in court.

In the statement Gould said that he hit Miss Antone half a dozen times and that he and Jenkins both raped her. He concluded by saying his treatment had been good at the Barracks and at the Elkton jail, that he had not been threatened, and that he made the confession freely and voluntarily. He read the statement (he had gone through the ninth grade at school), it was then read to him, and he signed it. Lough testified that Gould had told him in the interrogation room before the polygraph test the same things he said in the statement.

The sheriff said from the stand that when they came out of the interrogation room, Lough asked Gould if he did not want to tell him, the sheriff, the same things he, Gould, had told him. Gould’s reply was to ask what the penalty was, to say he was sorry it happened, and to make and sign the confession. Gould says that when Lough concluded the interrogation, he told him the Cecil County judge hated liars and for him to go out and shake hands with the sheriff and tell