holding that the intentional murder of a nun, who had been bound by the hands and feet with her own shoelaces and strangled with a knotted strip of towel wrapped and twisted around her neck, before being buried under a pile of rocks, was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel
How later courts described this case
- holding that the intentional murder of a nun, who had been bound by the hands and feet with her own shoelaces and strangled with a knotted strip of towel wrapped and twisted around her neck, before being buried under a pile of rocks, was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel
- recognizing that the jury considers issues- relating to the voluntariness of a confession when deciding whether the statement was credible
- "Before the defendant made the oral statement, he was permitted to see his girlfriend . . . in a room alone for approximately thirty minutes"
- "It is improper for a trial judge to disclose to the jury that he made a preliminary determination that a confession was voluntary and, therefore, admissible."
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
I concur in the result. See Ritter v. State , 414 So.2d 452
(Ala. 1981) (Maddox, Jones, and Adams, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part).