Outlaw v. State

Defendant appeals from convictions for rape and robbery, contending that an erroneous standard was applied to test the vol-untariness of his confession and that a video-taped deposition of an absent witness should not have been admitted into evidence.

I

The Trial Court charged the jury that the burden was on the State to show by a preponderance of the evidence that defendant’s statement had been given voluntarily. Defendant argues that the jury should have been instructed to consider the statement only if there was proof beyond a “reasonable doubt” that it had been given voluntarily.

The…