Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/271

 UNITED STATES V. STONB. 257 �Both these questions being answered in the affirmative, the evi- dence is excluded as a io&tter of law, the judge trying the facts as in other cases oi mixed questions of law and fact; but either being answered in the negative, the evidence goes to the jury, and there- upon they try this as they do all the other facts of the case, giving such weight to the confession as they see fit. Ail evidence of con- fessions does not pass through this ordeal of trial by the judge, except to determine whether it belongs to the one class or the other; for if they have been made to persons not in authority, whether vol- untarily or involuntarily, they go to the jury, to be by them discarded if they find that they ha^e been extorted by threats or induced by promises of that kind that "the prisoner would be likely to tell an untruth from fear of the threat or hope of profit from the promise." �It would be going too far, perhaps, to say that the term "confession" implies, somewhat in the nature of theword, an aeknowledgment of guilt to one in authority, not competent as evidence, if the judge sees that the person in authority has taken advantage of his position to extort or induce it ; while such aeknowledgment to one not in author- ity is merely an admission or declaration of the party, receivable in evidence precisely as in civil cases, to be valued by the jury according to circumstances. But the inexactness is more philological thaii tech- nical, and this, because the two terms are ordinarily used to distin- guish between civil and criminal cases, more as a matter of conveni- ence than anything else. 1 Greenl, Ev. § 213. But when we corne to classify confessions, when so broadly used, we find a need of some further division than that of judicial and extrajudicial. la. § 216. Because, whether the given case falls within the one or the other of the classes as defined by Mr. Greenleaf, we find that it is subject to the distinctions above adverted to, unless we treat all confessions made to one in authority as judicial — which in a broad sense they are — and do not limit that class, as he does, to those "made before a magistrate, or in court, in the due course of legal proceedings." Otherwise, extrajudicial confessions, as defined by that learned au- thor, must be again distinguished into those made to persons in authority over the prosecution and those made to such as are not. Authoritative and nnautlwritative, officiai and extraofficial, may be sug- gested as sufficiently comprehensive to designate the distinctions be- tween the two, though I should prefer — following a not unnatural signification of the terms — to limit confessions to that aeknowledg- ment ox guilt made to any person in authority over the prosecution, v.8,no.4— 17 ��� �