Court Opinion

ID: 9422278
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:01:56.882453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:35.559484
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
whom Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice Whittaker join, dissenting.
I agree to what my Brother Frankfurter has written in delineation of the general principles governing police interrogation of those suspected of, or under investigation in connection with, the commission of crime, and as to the factors which should guide federal judicial review of state action in this field. I think, however, that upon this record, which contains few of the hallmarks usually found in “coerced confession” cases, such considerations find their proper reflection in affirmance of this judgment.
With due regard to the medical and other evidence as to petitioner’s history and subnormal mentality, I am unable to consider that it was constitutionally impermissible for the State to conclude that petitioner’s “Wednesday” confessions were the product of a deliberate choice on his part to try to ameliorate his fate by making a clean breast of things, and not the consequence of improper police activity. To me, petitioner’s supplemental confession on the following Saturday night, which as depicted by the record bears all the indicia of spontaneity, is especially persuasive against this Court’s contrary view.
I should also add that I find no constitutional infirmity in the standards used by the Connecticut courts in evaluating the voluntariness of petitioner’s confessions. Cf. Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U. S. 534.
I would affirm.