fire until it blazed up. However, the two defense witnesses who testified at trial stated that the fire had started at the top of the house in the attic. One of these witnesses testified that, as the attic burned, he was located near the ground floor east window where Simon had confessed to starting the fire, but there was no fire there. According to Justice Semmes, '[T]hese witnesses, who are unimpeached, and whose testimony is uncontradicted, establish the fact, that the confessions of the prisoner as to the particulars of the burning were altogether untrue.' As Justice Semmes reasoned, if Simon had been truthfully confessing to arson, he would have had no reason to lie about the location where he had started the fire." Hardy stated that "without [Simon's] coerced confession, it did not appear there was any evidence to convict him." Simon was to be held in the Pensacola jail until the second trial. Finley cancelled the October 1853 Escambia County Circuit Court term due to a Yellow Fever epidemic. Simon’s second trial was postponed until the next Escambia County Circuit Court term, in June 1854. Simon died in the Pensacola jail on February 25, 1854. The Florida Supreme Court's 1853 reversal of Finley's decision established a precedent that confessions extracted by threats or promises are inadmissible at trial. End of Pre- Civil War Judicial Service to the State of Florida With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Finley left service to the Western Judicial Circuit of Florida. Service to the Confederate States of America (1861 to 1865) Judicial Service Finley was appointed judge of the Confederate States court for the district of Florida in 1861. He resigned in March 1862 to join the Confederate Army. Military service Finley volunteered as a private in the 6th Florida Infantry of the Confederate Army, and was successively promoted to be the colonel of the regiment. He took part in the Kentucky Campaign in Maj. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith's column. His first significant combat came at the Battle of Chickamauga, where his regiment captured a battery of Union artillery, but was unsupported and forced to withdraw with 165 casualties. He was promoted to brigadier general on November 8, 1863 (with date of rank of November 16), commanding all of the Florida infantry in the Army of Tennessee. Finley's Brigade, part of Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge's division, was caught up