Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/266/1
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 02:20:55+00:00

Document:
Argued: April 7, 8, 1924.
Messrs. Wm. C. Dennis, Frederic D. McKenney, James A. O'Shea, Charles Fahy, and John W. Davis, all of Washington, D. C., for petitioner.
The Attorney General and Mr. Peyton Gordon, of Washington, D. C., for the United States.
On January 31, 1919, the police department of the District of Columbia learned that three Chinamen, the inmates of a house in Washington occupied by the Chinese Educational Mission, had been murdered. They were known to have been alive late in the evening of January 29. Police officers were told by Li, a student, that, earlier on the same evening, he had seen at the Mission a resident of New York City named Wan. Acting under instructions of the superintendent of police, two detectives started immediately for New York, taking Li with them. On February 1, they entered Wan's room in a lodging house, found him there, and brought him to Washington. He was not formally arrested until February 9. Later, he was indicted, in the Supreme Court of the District, for the murder of one of the Chinamen; was found guilty; and was sentenced to be hanged. The Court of Appeals of the District affirmed the judgment. 289 F. 908, 53 App. D. C. 250. A writ of certiorari was granted. 263 U. S. 693, 44 S. Ct. 34, 68 L. Ed. 509.
Wan was a native of China. He had come to the United States in 1916, at the age of 22, as a student. In 1918, he engaged in a business which proved unsuccessful. Since December of that year, or earlier, his health had been bad. He had an attack of Spanish influenza. He suffered continuously from a chronic stomach trouble which led him to eat sparingly and irregularly. When the detectives entered his room unannounced they found him in bed. They had no search warrant; but they made a search of the room and his effects, including the bed in which he lay. They were accompanied by a New York police officer; but they did not arrest Wan. They requested that he return with them to Washington. He told them he was too sick. Li, who had been left waiting outside the closed door and was called in, told Wan that both of them were suspected of the murder. Then, Wan consented to go with the detectives to Washington.
On arrival in Washington, Wan was not put formally under arrest; but he was taken to a secluded room. In the presence of three detectives, the superintendent of police, and Li, he was subjected there to questioning for five or six hours. Late in the evening of that first day, the detectives took him to Hotel Dewey; and, without entering his name in the hotel registry, placed him in a bedroom on an upper floor. In that room he was detained continuously one week. Throughout the period, he was sick and, most of the time, in bed. A physician was repeatedly called. It was a police surgeon who came. In vain Wan asked to see his brother, with whom he lived in New York, who had nursed him in his illness, who had come to Washington at his request in January, who had returned with him to New York, and whom, as he later learned, the detectives had also brought to Washington, were detaining in another room of the hotel, and were subjecting to like interrogation.
Wan was held in the hotel room without formal arrest, incommunicado. But he was not left alone. Every moment of the day, and of the night, at least one member of the police force was on guard inside his room. Three ordinary policemen were assigned to this duty. Each served eight hours; the shifts beginning at midnight, at 8 in the morning, and at 4 in the afternoon. Morning, afternoon, and evening (and at least on one occasion after midnight) the prisoner was visited by the superintendent of police and/or one or more of the detectives. The sole purpose of these visits was to interrogate him. Regardless of Wan's wishes and protest, his condition of health, or the hour, they engaged him in conversation. He was subjected to persistent, lengthy, and repeated cross-examination. Sometimes it was subtle, sometimes severe. Always the examination was conducted with a view to entrapping Wan into a confession of his own guilt and/or that of his brother. Whenever these visitors entered the room, the guard was stationed outside the closed door.
On the eighth day, the accusatory questioning took a more excruciating form. A detective was in attendance throughout the day. In the evening, Wan was taken from Hotel Dewey to the Mission. There, continuously for ten hours, this sick man was led from floor to floor minutely to examine and re-examine the scene of the triple murder and every object connected with it, to give explanations, and to answer questions. The places where the dead men were discovered; the revolver with which presumably the murder was committed, the blood stains and the finger prints thereon; the bullet holes in the walls; the discharged cartridges found upon the floor; the clothes of the murdered men; the blood stains on the floor and the stairs; a bloody handkerchief; the coat and pillow which had been found covering the dead men's faces; photographs, taken by the police, of the men as they lay dead; the doors and windows through which the murderer might have entered or made his escape; photostat copies of writings, by means of which it was sought to prove that Wan was implicated in a forgery incident to the murder; all these were shown him. Every supposed fact ascertained by the detectives in the course of their investigation was related to him. Concerning every object, every incident detailed, he was, in the presence of a stenographer, plied with questions by the superintendent of police and the detectives. By these he was engaged in argument; sometimes separately, sometimes in joint attack. The process of interrogation became ever more insistent. In passed at times from inquiry into command. From 7 o'clock in the evening until 5 o'clock in the morning the questioning continued. Before it was concluded, Li, who was again in attendance, had left the Mission about midnight, worn out by the long hours. The superintendent of police had returned to his home, apparently exhausted. One of the detectives had fallen asleep. To Wan, not a moment of sleep was allowed.
'Question. You thought he was so exhausted mentally that he would not know what he was signing. * * * Would he know what he was signing?
'Answer. He would know what he was signing, yes.
'Question. Would he be liable to sign a confession that would lead him to the gallows in that condition?
'Answer. I think he would, if he wanted to be left alone.
'Question. With spastic colitis, if he was accused of crime he would simply sign a paper and say, 'You hang me'? This is your opinion as a medical man?
The indictment was found on September 30, 1919; the verdict rendered on January 9, 1920; and the sentence imposed on May 14, 1920. The time for filing the bill of exceptions, which under the rule would have expired June 21, 1920, was, on that day, extended to November 1, 1920; and it was not filed until the latter date. Before it was settled, the judge who had presided at the trial died. A motion to vacate the judgment, made on this ground, was denied on November 22, 1921. Thereupon the bill of exceptions was signed by the Chief Justice of the court. It was contended here, among other things, that the judgment should be set aside because a bill of exceptions can be settled only by the judge who presided at the trial. The contention is unfounded. Roney v. United States, 43 App. D. C. 533.
With the exception of these statements, the government introduced only circumstantial evidence. The defendant testified on his own behalf, asserting his innocence. He described the conditions under which the statements had been made, denied or explained them, and insisted that the confession was a suggested one.
Hopt v. Utah, 110 U. S. 574, 584, 4 S. Ct. 202, 28 L. Ed. 262; Sparf and Hansen v. United States, 156 U. S. 51, 55, 15 S. Ct. 273, 39 L. Ed. 343; Pierce v. United States, 160 U. S. 355, 357, 16 S. Ct. 321, 40 L. Ed. 454; Wilson v. United States, 162 U. S. 613, 623, 16 S. Ct. 895, 40 L. Ed. 1090; Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532, 558, 18 S. Ct. 183, 42 L. Ed. 568; Hardy v. United States, 186 U. S. 224, 229 22 S. Ct. 889, 46 L. Ed. 1137; Powers v. United States, 223 U. S. 303, 314, 32 S. Ct. 281, 56 L. Ed. 448; Bilokumsky v. Tod, 263 U. S. 149, 157, 44 S. Ct. 54, 68 L. Ed. 221.
See also Wilson v. United States, 162 U. S. 613, 623, 16 S. Ct. 895, 40 L. Ed. 1090; Hardy v. United States, 186 U. S. 224, 229, 22 S. Ct. 889, 46 L. Ed. 1137; Kent v. Porto Rico, 207 U. S. 113, 119, 28 S. Ct. 55, 52 L. Ed. 127; Powers v. United States, 223 U. S. 303, 313, 32 S. Ct. 281, 56 L. Ed. 448, Compare Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547, 12 S. Ct. 195, 35 L. Ed. 1110; Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591, 596, 597, 16 S. Ct. 644, 40 L. Ed. 819; Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, 71, 26 S. Ct. 370, 50 L. Ed. 652; Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361, 379, 31 S. Ct. 538, 55 L. Ed. 771, Ann. Cas. 1912D, 558; Perlman v. United States, 247 U. S. 7, 13, 38 S. Ct. 417, 62 L. Ed. 950.
Witness went to the station house Sunday night for the purpose of still talking to him about the case. 'I wanted to straighten out a great many circumstances which pointed to him; * * * wanted to know from him whether he was guilty; wanted him to tell the truth; asked him on a number of occasions to tell the truth, and those circumstances which pointed very strongly against him, strongly indicated to witness' mind that he knew a great deal more about the case than he told of; that we had caught him in several contradictory statements and witness said; 'We are all firmly of the belief that you know who killed those men;' sat and watched him and looked at him carefully and for a long time after I would tell him those things and would say, 'Now you think it over,' and stayed right there with him.
'Q. Your purpose in telling him those things was to make him talk?
'A. My purpose was to get him to tell me the truth about this case.
'Q. Answer the question will you?
Compare Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 631, 6 S. Ct. 524, 29 L. Ed. 746; Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, 398, 34 S. Ct. 341, 58 L. Ed. 652, L. R. A. 1915B, 834, Ann. Cas. 1915C, 1177; Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385, 392, 40 S. Ct. 182, 64 L. Ed. 319; Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298, 41 S. Ct. 261, 65 L. Ed. 647; Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313, 316, 41 S. Ct. 266, 65 L. Ed. 654; Bilokumsky v. Tod, 263 U. S. 149, 155, 44 S. Ct. 54, 68 L. Ed. 221; and 'Progress of the Law 1921-1922, Evidence,' (Chafee) 35 Harv. Law Rev. 428, 439.
LISENBA v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF CALIFORNIA.
WARD v. STATE OF TEXAS.
Daniel SMITH, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America.

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