Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/276

262 - FEDEBAi REPORTEE. �In regard to Tarran,t, the deputy marshal, his mere presence, wjthout more, -would not invalidate the confession. He must ho m authority over the proscoution and prisoner, and sanction the threat or promise held ouit by others, See the cases mentioned in the commenta on Beggarly' a Case, supra; 1 Whart. Crim. Law, (7th Ed.) § 692, at p. 609; State v. Qossett, 9 Eich. (S. C.) Law, 428 ; Stall V. Cook, 15 Eich. (S. C.) Law, 29; Wiley v. State, 3 Cold. (Tenn.) 362. He was pregent only in hie character as the assistant of Ben- nett. I have no doubt they both relied upon his officiai position as an aid in procuring settlementfffor the goods taken from this wreck ; but Tarrant was not using his officiai powers, if he had any, to extort or elicit this confession, jHe had no warrant of arrest, and was neither attempting nor threatening to make an arrest, and there was no cause for the defeiidant to reasonably suppose that he had any authority to hold out inducements or to sanction those held out by Bennetti �Finally, Imay say that, while tfee courts are coiastantly lamenting that there is any rule that exoludes the evidence of confessions or admissions of guilt in any case from the consideration of the jury, who have just as much capacity/to weigh the facts of duress or in- ducement as they have any other facts in the case, and who finally in all cases pass upon the question, not of admis aibility, but of duress or inducement, whenever the judge does admit the proof, I see no reasou why the rule should be extended in the least beyond the es- tablished law of the cases. In this case I fully submitted to the jury the determination of the weight they would give to the evidence, and I have no doubt, if there was any threat or inducement to impair the testimony, the defendant received the full benefit of it. He oould have been properly convicted upon his own testimony before the jury with- out the confessions ; still, if they were improperly admitted, be would be entitled to a new trial. U. S. v. De Quilfeldt, 5 Ped. Eep. 276. Hence I have given the subject a careful examination, and am satis- fied the evidence was properly admitted. The other requests refused need not be eapecially noticed. They are on the face of them not in accordance with the views I have taken of the statute and the law of the case as here expressed, and affcer thorough reconsideration I am of opinion a new trial should be refused. �Motion overruled. ���Note. Of the 51 indictmetits found by the grand jury for plundering the wreck of the City of Vicksburgh, 10 were disposed of by conviction subse- ��� �