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104 La. 365

State v. Joseph

Supreme Court of Louisiana

Decided November 15, 1900

Supreme Court of Louisiana · decided 1900-11-15

<p>APPEAL from the Seventeenth Judicial District, Parish of Vermillion — -White, J., ad hoc.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1900-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently December 1967

5 state decisions

201900191019201930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1The opinion of the court was delivered by

Watkins, J.

¶2The defendant was indicted with another for the larceny of two heifers, and from a verdict of guilty against the two and sentence to imprisonment at hard labor, he prosecutes this appeal, relying upon two bills of exception, one of which relates to the admission *366in evidence of an alleged confession, and the other to the introduction of irrelevant testimony.

¶3With regard to the alleged confession, the testimony shows the following facts substantially to-wit:

¶4That the accused being incarcerated in jail, sent for a friend for the purpose of getting him to sign his appearance bond, and after he arrived, he told him, as an inducement, he intended to make a confession, and that consequently the signing of his bond would be a mere formality, as the court was to convene soon.

¶5To this statement, the friend assented, saying that he thought to confess was the best thing for him to do if he was guilty; that possibly his punishment would be lighter. But he declined to sign the bond.

¶6Immediately afterwards, the sheriff was sent for, and the same statements were made by the accused in his presence, without any promise or threat being made.

¶7The statement of the accused as a witness in his own behalf differed materially from the testimony of the other two. The trial judge chose to believe them in preference to the accused, - and held that the confession was voluntary; and in so doing we think he was right.

¶8The testimony objected to as immaterial, related to the sale, in a neighboring town, of dressed meat to market men customarily and often, a short while previous to the indictment being found; but was quite similar to the kind pf testimony given by other witnesses and not objected to. The objection is without force, and the objection of immateriality is a weak one.

¶9We find no error to the prejudice of the accused.

¶10Judgment affirmed.

¶11Rehearing refused.

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