White v. State

Orth, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Elizabeth Ann White died on 7 February 1969 at the age of 14 years. The manner of her death was homicide. The cause of her death was “strangulation by ligature.” Three loops of brown stocking were tightly wrapped around her neck — a single loop placed around her neck and tied with a “granny knot” at the back and the two ends wrapped in the same direction around the neck, overlaying the first loop and ending at the knot.

A single loop of electrical cord was wrapped loosely around her neck. ³ The young girl was found in a bedroom of her home, completely nude, lying face down on a bed. Her arms were tied behind her back with the wrists held together by a brown stocking wrapped in a double loop around each wrist with a “granny knot” at the right wrist. There were five lacerations of the scalp produced by impacts with a blunt instrument which could have been a wrench found on the scene and on which there were blood stains and hair fragments. There were multiple superficial small abrasions of the back; their appearance was consistent with having been caused by a Phillips screwdriver also found at the scene.

There were multiple superficial incised wounds of the neck and an abrasion of the left forearm. There were no lacerations or hemorrhages of the perineum, vagina, anus or rectum and no foreign hairs or other foreign material in that region. A strand of bloody mucoid material protruded from the external cervical os. There were “a few scattered spermatozoa, most with intact tails” found in an oral cavity smear but none identified on smears from the vagina and rectum.

Libby’s 16 year old brother, Robert Cecil White, told the police he killed his sister. What he said was recounted by Detective Harold Rose of the Baltimore City Police Department. “He told us that he had intercourse with her about a year before. He said that on Friday, February 7th he saw Libby leave the house for school at 8:00 A.M. and he was leaving at 8:15 A.M. He said he saw Libby double back to the house, up the back alley, to go into the house. He then went to school and stayed until lunch bell rang, fifth period, at 12:10 P.M. Robert said that he then ran home and entered the house by climbing through the second floor rear window.

He said Libby was on the first floor and he asked her to make love with him. She said no because she was sick. He began chasing her ⁴ around. He chased her upstairs to the second floor bedroom and threw her down on the bed.

He picked up a wrench on the dresser and struck Libby on the head and then undressed her. Robert said that he then had intercourse with Libby, but not the regular way because she was sick. He had intercourse through Libby’s rectum. When he got excited he pulled out and had a climax in the bath and had some on the bedsheet.

He said while he was having intercourse Libby started to act up, so he hit her again on the head with the wrench. He said that he thinks he tied her hands behind her before he had intercourse but he wasn’t sure. He said that after he finished he realized what he had done and he decided that he had to kill her. That’s when he strangled her.

He said that he picked up a knife and a screwdriver and was going to stab Libby, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. So he either dropped the knife or threw it on the floor. He said that he had taken his clothes off when he started with Libby and when he finished he went into the bathroom and washed the blood oif and then got dressed. He went downstairs and tried to look at television but kept seeing Libby’s face.

So he paced for a few minutes and decided he had to make it look as though someone else did it. He ran back to school and was one or two minutes late for the sixth period which began at 1:05 P.M. He stayed in school until classes were over at 2:40 P.M. and then walked home. On the way home he stopped at Grieble’s Grocery Store on Pennington Avenue and bought a pepsi and four TastyKakes. He ate three cakes and when he got home he went upstairs to the bedroom and placed the remaining ,Tasty-Kake and pepsi, some of which he drank, on the bed along side of Libby.

He propped the pepsi against the pillow. He said ⁵ that he did this to make it look like someone else had been there. Then he ran from the house to his sister Wilma and told her that he found Libby. While his sister went to Robert’s house, Robert went to a neighbor’s house and called the police.” He was indicted, charged with murder and assault with intent to rape.

He was tried in the Criminal Court of Baltimore. A jury found him guilty of murder in the first degree and the aggravated assault, adding the words “without capital punishment” to each verdict. Code, Art. 27, §§ 12 and 413. He was sentenced to confinement for the period of his natural life on the murder conviction and to 18 months concurrent therewith on the assault conviction.

It is firmly established in this State that when the prosecution seeks to place a confession before the jury and its admission is properly challenged by the defense, the court has the preliminary decision whether or not the confession was voluntary and should be admitted. To do so it hears evidence without the jury. It need not find on this evidence that the confession was voluntary beyond a reasonable doubt; its only duty is to decide whether the prima facie proof was such as to establish that it was voluntarily made. Voluntariness in this frame of reference includes not only the traditional concept of the word — without force or coercion, inducement or promise — but, as to trials held after 13 June 1966, that the procedural safeguards directed by Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 , were employed.

If the court finds a confession to be admissible it is presented to the jury, and when made within the required constitutional framework, this preliminary decision will not be disturbed on appeal unless there was a clear abuse of discretion. When the confession is presented to the jury, they have the final determination whether or not it was voluntary and whether or not it should be believed. To consider it they must find it to be voluntary beyond a ⁶ reasonable doubt. Thus evidence relevant to its voluntariness must be adduced before the jury and they are entitled to hear all of the evidence which affects its voluntary character and which the court passed on in admitting it.

On appeal their ultimate determination of its voluntariness is reviewed by applying the tests as to the sufficiency of the evidence. Of course, if voluntary, whether or not it is to be believed goes to the weight of the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses, matters for the jury. 1 It appeared that appellant made five inculpatory oral statements to the police in the presence of various persons. All were substantially the same. Appellant challenged the admission of these statements by a motion to suppress filed prior to trial.

Upon a pretrial evidentiary hearing the court determined that three of them were admissible. At the trial of the general issue, after evidence tending to establish the corpus delicti of the offenses, evidence was adduced regarding the voluntariness of the three statements the court had ruled to be admissible. At its close the court overruled objection to the admission of the statements and the substance of them was given to the jury. Appellant claims that the court erred in denying his motion to suppress and in overruling his objection at trial to the admission of the statements. 2 It is patent in this case that if the preliminary finding of voluntariness was proper the overruling of the objection when the statements were offered at trial was proper for the evidence adduced at the hearing was substantially ⁷ the same as that adduced at trial.

Appellant does not present a question going to the ultimate determination of voluntariness by the jury, which would be tested, as has been pointed out, by the rule regarding sufficiency of the evidence. His contention is limited to the propriety of the admission of the statements and our task is to ascertain by our independent constitutional appraisal of the record whether the prima facie proof was such as to establish that they were voluntarily made. If it was the court did not clearly abuse its discretion in admitting them. Evidence adduced at the hearing showed that Robert had submitted to a polygraph examination on 8 February 1969 and thereafter been released.

Before he took the examination he executed an Explanation of Rights form containing the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 and acknowledged that he understood them. On 11 February the police obtained information concerning his attendance at school on the day of the murder. Waiting until after Libby’s funeral, they found him on the street about 3:15 p.m. and he agreed to accompany them for questioning. They drove to his sister’s house where the family had gathered following the funeral and told his mother, sister and brother what they were doing.

They arrived at the Homicide Office in Police Headquarters about 3:30 p.m. Thereafter in a period of about five hours he made four oral confessions, each the same in substance. Three police officers, Sergeant Harry R. Bannon and Detectives Harold Rose and William Craig were present when each statement was made. Assistant State’s Attorneys Fred Grant and Stephen Harris were present when the second, third and fourth were made.

Cecil White, Robert’s older brother, was present when the fourth was made. All testified. Evidence offered by the State was that there was compliance with the procedural requirements of Miranda before each of the first three confessions was obtained. This was done by reading to Robert the Explanation of Rights form, a copy of which was also given him to read.

This form set ⁸ out not only the fights required by Miranda 3 but contained as paragraphs six and seven the following: “6. That I have read this explanation of my rights and I understand the explanation. I hereby declare, with full knowledge and understanding of my rights, that I do not want a lawyer at this time. I am willing to answer questions and I wish to make a statement. 7.

That no promises or inducements have been offered to me by anyone. I have not been threatened or intimidated by anyone and I have not been forced to make a statement. The decision to make a statement is entirely free and voluntary on my part.” With respect to the first confession Robert stated affirmatively that he understood his rights as read and explained by Rose and about 4:15 p.m. he made a statement. Immediately thereafter he denied the substance of it.

Questioning stopped and the police called the State’s Attorneys Office for advice. While awaiting the arrival of an assistant state’s attorney Robert was given a meal —meat loaf, mashed potatoes, bread and coffee. Grant and Harris arrived about 7:00 p.m. Rose again read the rights to Robert and then Grant explained each right to Robert who acknowledged that he understood them. ⁹ Robert repeated the statement he had previously given and again repudiated it immediately thereafter.

When the police talked to Grant on the telephone he suggested that the parents be asked to come in. A car was dispatched for them. Robert’s father and brother arrived about 8:30 p.m. The father was taken into Robert’s presence and the rights were read to them.

Each said he understood them. Robert made a statement which was in substance the same as those previously made. And when the father left the room again denied that he had done what he confessed he did. Grant told the father that Robert repudiated the confession and asked the father to go back in the room to hear the denial himself.

The father requested that James, the brother, also be present. James told Robert “just tell the truth. We are with you if you did this.” The father said, “Be a man, son. If you did this, then we will help.

And we will get help for you, and we will stick with you.” He asked Robert if he did it and Robert said he did. He gave the statement a fourth time. The father said, “Bobby, you are being a man telling the truth.” Robert looked at his father and said, “I didn’t do it.” Questioned by his father he said he was protecting his brother-in-law who had been messing around with Libby. The brother joined in the questioning and then said, “Bobby, just tell us the truth.” Robert started to cry and said, “I did it; I did it; what I said was the truth.” He told the story again; it was basically the same as he had given before.

The next day Robert was given a second polygraph examination and made a fifth statement. Robert did not claim that he had been physically abused. He did say that the police had threatened to make him masturbate to compare sex cells unless he confessed and that they told him that they could help him out at Perkins and would help him get an education so he could get in the Air Force. The masturbation allegation was specifically denied by each of the State’s witnesses and there was testimony from them that no one had used any force or coercion, inducement or promise to obtain ¹⁰ the confessions.

Robert said he had nothing to eat on 11 February from 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. when he had breakfast until the meal at the police