of the jurisdiction, or where his plea was caused by his erroneous belief, based upon a remark by the judge that the lowest sentence would be imposed, or where there is any doubt of the sanity of the prisoner, or he pleads guilty under duress, and because of the intimidation and threats of being lynched by a mob, the conviction should be reversed.

But the mere fact that the punishment is greater than the accused anticipated that he would receive if he pleaded guilty,** or that the district attorney or other prosecuting official was permitted to offer evidence of facts and circumstances to aggravate the guilt of the accused and to increase his punishment, is not sufficient to justify permitting a voluntary plea of guilty to be withdrawn.*

A statute which requires the judge to satisfy himself that a plea of guilty was freely made, uninfluenced by fear or the delusive hope of pardon, with full knowledge of the charge and without undue influence, must be strictly observed with a view of protecting the accused against unscrupulous persons who might extort a plea of guilty from him through his ignorance or by false promises.

Sanders v. State, 85 Ind. 318, presence of the prosecuting attorney. 320-334, 44 Am. 29.

A plea of guilty is only a confession of guilt in the manner and form as charged in the indictment. It admits the facts charged and no others. It does not admit that the facts stated in the indictment constitute a crime. Hence a conviction on a plea of guilty should be reversed where no legal crime is actually charged in the indictment, or where the crime to which the accused pleads guilty is not the offense described in the indictment.*8

47

But a plea of guilty waives formal defects in the indictment upon which a plea in abatement might be based.1o

§ 145. Confessions of persons not indicted.-The incriminating statements of a third person that he committed the crime for which the accused is on trial are hearsay. Such persons must be produced as witnesses.50

Accordingly evidence on a trial for homicide that a person who was present when the deceased was killed then stated that he and not the accused had shot the deceased, is properly excluded unless the person whose statement is offered shall be produced as a witness.51

The prisoner may, of course, disprove his guilt by proving the guilt of some other person.52 But he cannot do that by introducing the extra-judicial confession or declaration of that person that he intended to commit, or that he had committed, the crime. The extra-judicial declaration is never conclusive upon the declarant. He may, if he be subsequently indicted because of this so-called confession, demonstrate its falsity and absolve himself. To receive such statements as exculpatory proof would be to open wide the door for the practice of fraud whereby the acquittal of the real criminal would be assured.53

II So. 450; State v. Duncan, 116 Mo. 288, 22 S. W. 699; State v. Fletcher, 24 Ore. 295, 33 Pac. 575, 577; State v. Haynes, 71 N. Car. 79, 84; State v. Bishop, 73 N. Car. 44.

47 Crow v. State, 6 Tex. 334, 355; 257; Welsh v. State, 96 Ala. 92, 96, Fletcher v. State, 12 Ark. 169; Fatrick v. State (Wyo., 1908), 98 Pac. 588; Commonwealth v. Kennedy, 131 Mass. 584; Boody v. People, 43 Mich. 34, 4 N. W. 349; State v. Levy, 119 Mo. 434, 24 S. W. 1026; Moore v. State, 53 Neb. 831, 74 N. W. 319.

49 State v. Queen, 91 N. Car. 659, 660.

Selby v. Commonwealth (Ky.), 80 S. W. 221, 25 Ky. L. 2209.

52 Brown v. State, 120 Ala. 342, 25 So. 182; McDonald v. State (Ala., 1910), 51 So. 629.

53 Greenfield v. People, 85 N. Y. 75. 90, 39 Am. 636; Daniel v. State, 65

But if it is alleged by the state that the third person was an accessory, his confession that he was the principal is admissible in favor of one who, being tried as the principal, claims he is not."

54

§ 146. The value of confessions as evidence.-The evidential value of confessions and their character, cogency and force as proof of crime are subjects that have elicited much discussion. Some, basing their views upon the natural presumption that a man will not voluntarily incriminate himself by uttering falsehoods, regard confessions as of considerable, if not of paramount value, in determining the guilt of the accused.55

Still it is usually very necessary that some degree of care should be used in receiving the confession, and much caution employed by the jury in ascertaining its weight and sufficiency. Its credibility is entirely for their determination, and though they may believe it to have been wholly free and voluntary, they may, and indeed must, scrutinize the confession closely, keeping in view the peculiar circumstances in which it was made. For it must be remembered that though it may have been voluntary the accused was, at the time he made it, embarrassed by the present rigors of his arrest and confinement in prison and menaced with. the fear of death or a term of imprisonment in the future. Such

Ga. 199; State v. Beaudet, 53 Conn. 536, 540, 4 Atl. 237, 55 Am. 155; Smith v. State, 9 Ala. 990; West v. State, 76 Ala. 98, 99; State v. Gee, 92 N. Car. 756, 760; People v. Gillespie, III Mich. 241, 69 N. W. 490. Defendant will not be permitted to show that a third person whose connection with the crime does not appear fled on the night it was committed. Owensby v. State, 82 Ala. 63, 64, 2 So. 764.

Pace v. State (Tex., 1893), 20 S. W. 762. The admissions and declarations of a person who has been injured by the accused in the perpetration of the crime, either in person or property, are not competent evidence in favor of the accused, except for the purpose of impeaching the

circumstances are not in general conducive to the calmness and deliberation which are necessary to secure a truthful and accurate narrative of past events of a stirring nature in which the speaker was the principal actor and participant."

56

From the moment of his arrest an accused person is surrounded by shrewd and experienced police officials, whose daily business it is to deal with hardened criminals, and whose interest it is, not to secure the acquittal of the innocent, but to bring the guilty to justice. The fact that a person under arrest is subsequently proved to be innocent of the crime charged, is often regarded as showing a lack of judgment or experience on the part of the officials causing or procuring his arrest. Hence it commonly happens that detectives, policemen and others entrusted with the detection and apprehension of criminals assume that every one who is placed under arrest is guilty of the crime charged. Such a mental attitude often leads to a wilful, and sometimes even to an unconscious and involuntary suppression, of those facts which indicate that the prisoner is innocent, and to an exaggeration of those which point to guilt."

56 Nobles v. State, 98 Ga. 73, 26 S. E. 64. In Commonwealth v. Tuckerman, 10 Gray (Mass.) 173, 190, the court said: "It is not because of any breach of good faith in admitting them, nor because they are extorted illegally, but the reason is that in the agitation of mind in which the party charged is supposed to be, he is liable to be influenced by the hope of advantage, or fear of injury, to state things which are not true. The influence which is to exclude the party's confession must be external influence, and not the mere operation of his own mind." Graham v. State, 118 Ga. 807, 45 S. E. 616; State v. Adams (Del.), 65 Atl. 510.

Priest v. State, 10 Neb. 393, 400, 2 N. W. 468, I Green. on Ev., § 219. "It is a rule of law that the confessions of parties charged with crime should be acted upon by courts

and juries with great caution. *
The wisdom of this rule cannot be
questioned, for the reason that not-
withstanding the confessions of per-
sons accused of crime have been held
to be evidence of the very highest
character, upon the theory that no
man would acknowledge that he had
committed a grave crime unless he
was actually guilty, but experience
teaches that this theory is a fallacy,
for it is a fact that numbers of per-
sons have confessed that they were
guilty of the most heinous crimes,
for which they suffered the most hor-
rible punishments and yet they were
innocent. In the sixteenth and sev-
enteenth centuries, in enlightened
England, men and women confessed
that they were guilty of witchcraft-
communion with evil spirits and suf-
fered at the stake therefore, and at
this day men through fear of per-

So, too, the accused may confess that he is guilty in order to divert suspicion from another, or to enable some other person to escape, and when he is himself placed on trial repudiate all he has said, and conclusively prove his innocence by unimpeachable evidence. A confession made to free another from suspicion or arrest is not, for that reason, inadmissible, particularly where the suspected person testifies that the accused substantially acknowledged the facts confessed in his hearing.58 Such cases are, however, admittedly rare, and can hardly, with justice, be invoked to impeach confessions made under ordinary circumstances rendering them admissible.

§ 147. Corroboration of extra-judicial confessions.-A naked confession is one which is not corroborated by independent proof of the corpus delicti. Upon such a confession made in open court, as, for example, by a plea of guilty, a conviction of any crime, and sentence may be had. But in the case of all extra-judicial confessions it is the rule that the corpus delicti must be proved by additional evidence before a conviction upon the naked confession alone will be upheld."

sonal punishment, or through hope of averting such punishment, confess that they are guilty of crime, without the slightest foundation in truth for such confession, and for these reasons we say, that the theory that men will not confess to the commission of crimes of which they are innocent, is a fallacy." Coffee v. State, 25 Fla. 501, 512, 6 So. 493, 23 Am. St. 525.

People v. Smalling, 94 Cal. 112, 29 Pac. 421; State v. Grant, 22 Me. 171, 174.

Harden v. State, 109 Ala. 50, 19 So. 494; Bartley v. People, 156 Ill. 234, 40 N. E. 831; People v. Simonsen, 107 Cal. 345, 40 Pac. 440; Attaway v. State, 35 Tex. Cr. App. 403, 34 S. W. 112; People v. Tarbox, 115 Cal. 57, 46 Pac. 896; Laughlin v. Commonwealth (Ky.), 37 S. W. 590, 18 Ky. L. 640; Pitts v. State, 43 Miss.

472, 480; Bergen v. People, 17 Ill. 426, 65 Am. Dec. 672n; South v. People, 98 Ill. 261; State v. Laliyer, 4 Minn. 368; Johnson v. State, 59 Ala. 37; State v. Keeler, 28 Iowa 551; Stringfellow v. State, 26 Miss. 157, 165; Priest v. State, 10 Neb. 393, 399, 6 N. W. 468; People v. Deacons, 109 N. Y. 374, 16 N. E. 676, 15 N. Y. St. 526, 28 Wkly. Dig. 545; Holland v. State, 39 Fla. 178, 22 So. 298; Davis v. State, 51 Neb. 301, 70 N. W. 984; Willard v. State, 27 Tex. App. 386, II S. W. 453, 11 Am. St. 197; People v. Lane, 49 Mich. 340, 13 N. W. 622; People v. Ranney, 153 Mich. 293, 116 N. W. 999, 15 Det. Leg. N. 442; State v. Abrams, 131 Iowa 479, 108 N. W. 1041; State v. Banusik (N. J.), 64 Atl. 994; Allen v. State, 4 Ga. App. 458, 61 S. E. 840; Jones v. State, 2 Ga. App. 433, 58 S. E. 559; Smith v.