Opinion ID: 2211566
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admissibility of Confessions: An Historical Perspective

Text: The United States Supreme Court originally followed the common-law rule pertaining to the admission of confessions: that a confession was admissible as long as it was freely and voluntarily made. See Hopt v. Utah, 110 U.S. 574, 584-585, 4 S.Ct. 202, 28 L.Ed. 262 (1884). [7] Then, in Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 542, 18 S.Ct. 183, 42 L.Ed. 568 (1897), the Court for the first time found the voluntariness requirement to be grounded in the Fifth Amendment's command that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. However, the voluntariness requirement was limited to cases in federal court. In Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 114, 29 S.Ct. 14, 53 L.Ed. 97 (1908), the Court held that exemption from compulsory self-incrimination in the courts of the states is not secured by any part of the Federal Constitution (emphasis added). Beginning with Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 56 S.Ct. 461, 80 L.Ed. 682 (1936), the Court introduced due process as a basis for excluding involuntary confessions in criminal proceedings occurring in state courts. [8] It was held that fundamental unfairness in violation of due process exists when a coerced confession is used as a means of obtaining a verdict of guilt. Lisenba v. California, 314 U.S. 219, 236-237, 62 S.Ct. 280, 86 L.Ed. 166 (1941). Under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the test for admissibility was the same as that under the Fifth Amendment's compelled self-incrimination provision, requiring `that the confession is made freely, voluntarily, and without compulsion or inducement of any sort.' Haynes v. Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 513, 83 S.Ct. 1336, 10 L.Ed.2d 513 (1963), quoting Wilson v. United States, 162 U.S. 613, 623, 16 S.Ct. 895, 40 L.Ed. 1090 (1896). The Court eventually returned its focus to the privilege against self-incrimination. In Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 6, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964), the Court overruled Twining and held that the Fifth Amendment's exception from compulsory self-incrimination is also protected by the Fourteenth Amendment against abridgment by the States. [9] The Court acknowledged that the Brown Court felt impelled, in light of Twining, to say that its conclusion did not involve the privilege against self-incrimination. Id. However, the Court reasoned that any distinction was soon abandoned. Id. at 6-7, 84 S.Ct. 1489. Thus, the Malloy Court concluded that today the admissibility of a confession in a state criminal prosecution is tested by the same standard applied in federal prosecutions since 1897, when, in Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 18 S.Ct. 183, 42 L.Ed. 568 [1897] the Court held that [i]n criminal trials, in the courts of the United States, wherever a question arises whether a confession is incompetent because not voluntary, the issue is controlled by that portion of the Fifth Amendment to the constitution of the United States commanding that no person `shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.' Id., 168 U.S. at 542, 18 S.Ct. at 187. Under this test, the constitutional inquiry is not whether the conduct of state officers in obtaining the confession was shocking, but whether the confession was free and voluntary; that is, [it] must not be extracted by any sort of threats or violence, nor obtained by any direct or implied promises, however slight, nor by the exertion of any improper influence.... Id., 168 U.S. at 542-543, 18 S.Ct. at 186-187; see also Hardy v. United States, 186 U.S. 224, 229, 22 S.Ct. 889, 891, 46 L.Ed. 1137 [1902]; Ziang Sung Wan v. United States, 266 U.S. 1, 14, 45 S.Ct. 1, 3, 69 L.Ed. 131 [1924]; Smith v. United States, 348 U.S. 147, 150, 75 S.Ct. 194, 196, 99 L.Ed. 192 [1954]. In other words the person must not have been compelled to incriminate himself. [ Id. at 7, 84 S.Ct. 1489.]