CARL A. TATUM, APPELLANT,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, APPELLEE

D.C. Cir. | 1962-12-20
No. 16881
313 F.2d 579 United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (1962) Positive Treatment
Cited by 10 cases

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Holding

A confession is inadmissible if made during illegal detention due to failure to promptly bring the prisoner before a committing magistrate.


Facts & Procedural History

Appellant was arrested and questioned for an extended period before being brought before a magistrate and confessing. The police failed to take him be…

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Opinion of the Court
EDGERTON, Circuit Judge.

EDGERTON, Circuit Judge.

Appellant drove the car involved in the Sheriff Road robbery-killing. Facts are stated in our opinion in Jackson v. United States, 114 U.S.App.D.C.-, 313 F. 2d 572 (1962).

Appellant was arrested shortly after 8:00 p.m. on January 17, 1961 and brought to the 14th precinct police station about 8:50. He was questioned for ten minutes in the lobby and denied all knowledge of the crime. He was then put in the cellblock. At 10:30 he was “booked”. At 11:00 he was confronted by Coleman who had just made a written confession. Appellant still denied complicity. He made a non-incriminating statement at 11:15 p.m. He was questioned, partly in the absence of Coleman, from 11:15 till midnight. He still maintained his innocence. At 12:15 or 12:25 a.m. on January 18, while Detective Shirley was preparing a “lineup sheet,” appellant is said to have agreed to confess. His written confession was completed at 3:00 a.m. He was brought before the United States Commissioner at 10:00 a.m.

The confession should have been excluded under the McNabb-Upshaw-Mallory rule. F.R.Crim.P. 5(a); Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479 (1957).

Probably when he denied all knowledge of the crime about 9:00 p.m. after ten minutes questioning, and certainly when he did so again upon confronting Coleman at 11:00 p.m., the police should have taken him before a magistrate or else released him. As we point out in Coleman v. United States, 114 U.S.App.D.C. -, 313 F. 2d 576, a magistrate is regular! y available at any hour. The circumstances in which appellant’s statements were obtained on the morning of January 18 are inconsistent with the legislative purpose “to avoid all the evil implications of secret interrogation of persons accused of crime.” McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 344, 63 S.Ct. 608, 614, 87 L.Ed. 819 (1943).

Cf. Anderson v. United States, 318 U.S. 350, 355, 63 S.Ct. 599, 87 L.Ed. 829 (1943). “[T]he delay must not be of a nature to give opportunity for the extraction of a confession.” Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. at 455, 77 S.Ct. at 1360. We must apply the rule that “a confession is inadmissible if made during illegal detention due to failure promptly to carry a prisoner before a committing magistrate * * Upshaw v. United States, 335 U.S. 410, 413, 69 S.Ct. 170, 172, 93 L.Ed. 100 (1948).

The judgment must be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.

Reversed and remanded.


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