Court Opinion

ID: 9420633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:55:28.670423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:26.332720
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Jackson,
whom Mr. Justice Frankfurter joins, concurring.
The State of Nebraska is the party that we have summoned to answer for state action claimed to violate the Fourteenth Amendment. . I begin, therefore, by considering just what Nebraska.itself has done that may be said to violate rights of the petitioner.
Nebraska authorities were not pursuing Gallegos. They did not know that murder had been done in that *69State and were under no pressure to pin guilt on someone. Gallegos, a Mexican illegally in this country, had been a transient worker in Nebraska beet fields and had with him a woman and two children. The whence and whither of their comings and goings made no impression on the community, and when they disappeared no one asked how or why.
From Texas authorities, however, came word that a Mexican, held there at request of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, had confessed to murdering his woman in Nebraska and had told where the body was buried. Nebraska does not charge murder on the basis of a confession without proof of the corpus delicti, so the Nebraska officers — from information given by Gallegos in Texas — found a grave and a decomposed body ultimately identified as that of the woman who had been living there with Gallegos without benefit of clergy. Only after this discovery and identification were they in a position to make a murder charge.
Gallegos was brought from Texas to Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska. That was the first time he was in the custody of Nebraska. There is not the slightest proof or suggestion by the defendant or his counsel that Nebraska official's abused, threatened, or unduly questioned him. On the contrary, he willingly told how he beat his paramour to death in a fit of jealousy. The only complaint against Nebraska is that it detained Gallegos an unduly long time before arraignment. Even if it did, the delay was after confession and therefore could not have been for any sinister purpose of coercing one, nor could the detention have been the cause of confession. There is not, from any state action by Nebraska, the slightest ground for inference that the confession to its officials was not given voluntarily.
Upon the trial, however, the prosecution proved not only the Nebraska confession but also an earlier one made *70in Texas. In connection with the latter, vague allegations are made against the Texas officials. Perhaps the prosecution would have been well advised not to have proved how the murder originally came to light. But the prosecution chose to lay the whole matter before the jury, and had it failed to do so it would no doubt have been charged with some sinister purpose in its suppression.
Even if we should assume that Texas officials coerced this confession, they were not acting at the request of Nebraska nor in any sense as her ágent. Before we could reverse the conviction, we would have to decide a question not heretofore answered in' any decision that I recall, namely, whether Nebraska merely by admitting a coerced foreign confession in evidence would deny due process. Insofar as the reason for exclusion is to prevent convictions on coerced confessions; which are shown by legal experience to be intrinsically unreliable, I should suppose that any defect in its origin would inhere in the confession wherever offered. Insofar, however, as the reason for exclusion is to deter states from attempting coercion in order to bring about convictions, the reason would hardly apply to a case where a state of confession sought no conviction and the state of conviction did not seek the confession. But here there is no need to resolve such difficult questions in affirming the conviction, for I find no coercion such as would require exclusion of this confession, even if Nebraska be held to answer for the conduct of every official involved.
Gallegos was taken into custody by the Texas authorities at the request of the United. States immigration service. They had probable cause to believe he was illegally in the country, as indeed he was, and I should not suppose his detention was illegal. The defendant himself does not claim that he was beaten, unduly questioned, or threatened, except that he was told he might be shipped *71back to Mexico and turned over to the Mexican authorities — a statement which, if made, was patently true.
It should be borne in mind that the detaining officers did not know of this murder except that the immigration officials apparently had some information that the woman in the case had disappeared. The Texas authorities were not under pressure to solve a local murder. It is not even clear that they accused Gallegos of murder and certainly they had no theory of a crime which they were trying to support by obtaining a confession.
But “The guilty flee when no man pursueth.” For three days, Gallegos refused to tell his name. But when he, finally revealed his identity, he went on and told all. He may have been of the impression that the authorities who were holding him knew more than they did. Only the fact that he was in custody, the fear that his deeds were known, and the weight'of the crime on his conscience can be said to have coerced this confession.
This defendant’s trial appears to have been scrupulously fair and dispassionate. The jury and the Nebraska courts appear to have weighed all of the claims of Gallegos fairly and found, what I do not see how they could avoid finding, that the confessions were voluntary within the meaning of the law. These are not confessions obtained to fit the facts known to the officials. It is a case where the officials were directed to facts that fitted details of the confession. Nor is it a case where the confession was altered or embellished in a prolonged process of examination. The story first given to the authorities in Texas is substantially identical with that recited to the Nebraska authorities in greater detail.,
Indeed no contention is brought to this Court that the confessions were in fact coerced or involuntary. The reason no such contention is made is that capable and zealous counsel cannot support them on this record. But the contention is that both confessions should be made inad*72missible in evidence because we should convert the so-called McNabb rule, a rule of evidence for federal courts, into a constitutional limitation upon the States. McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332. The claim, and the only claim, is that because Gallegos was not arraigned by Texas immediatély after arrest and again by Nebraska immediately after arrival in that State, each detention was illegal and the confessions, even if made without abuse or threat of it, but as a result of questioning during this detention, are inadmissible in evidence. The only' “question presented” by the petition to this Court reads: “Are confessions of an accused obtained from him during a prolonged period of unlawful detention before he was brought before a magistrate and before a counsel was appointed to assist him, admissible in evidence?” Every one of the three specifications of error urged in petitioner’s brief is based on “twenty-five days of unlawful detention” and on that alone.
Let us see whát this would mean as applied to Texas. Texas made the arrest at the request of the immigration authorities and it is not denied that they had probable cause to believe he was an alien who had entered the country illegally. But, for three days he would not tell his name. I should not suppose the authorities were obliged to release an obvious alien so charged before they could learn his identity. Then he disclosed the murder. But the murder did not take place in Texas. That State obviously could not arraign him for it. Was it obliged to turn loose a confessed murderer because the murder occurred outside of their jurisdiction? It does ■not seem to me that to hold such a person without arraignment under these circumstances denies due process, unless due process prohibits society from taking common-sense steps to solve a murder.
*73But it is complained that Nebraska held him too long (just how long is too long we never are told) without arraignment. As I have pointed out, Nebraska knew nothing of the murder and had to conduct an investigation before it could make a properly supported charge of murder. Certainly due process does not require that charges be placed hurriedly and recklessly. Scotts Bluff County is a rural county with less than forty thousand inhabitants, more than half of whom are concentrated in two towns, the largest of which has a population of only twelve thousand. The small prosecuting staff that such a county would maintain cannot be expected to move with the speed of the Federal Government, with its many thousand agents and countless attorneys, or with the speed of big city police forces. What was there to hurry about? Gallegos had already confessed and he was not prejudiced by the delay. The authorities took their time drawing papers and getting proof of the corpus delicti in order. There seems to have been no passion or revenge at work in the case. A small prosecuting office in a town where life is leisurely made a simple effort to go about its duty with convenient speed.
Even if, as some members of the Court ardently desire, the McNabb rule were ever to be converted into a constitutional limitation upon the States, the facts in this case would afford a poor foundation for it. I concur in the affirmance.