Court Opinion

ID: 9419527
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:49:57.487342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:42:09.328766
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Murpht,
dissenting:
This flagrant abuse by a state of the rights of an American citizen accused of murder ought not to be approved. The Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal government from convicting a defendant on evidence that he was compelled to give against himself. Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532. Decisions of this Court in effect have held that the Fourteenth Amendment makes this prohibition applicable to the states. Chambers v. Florida, *606309 U. S. 227; Canty v. Alabama, 309 U. S. 629; Lisenba v. California, 314 U. S. 219; Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143. Cf. Green, “Liberty Under the Fourteenth Amendment,” 27 Wash. Univ. L. Q. 497, 533. It is our duty to apply that constitutional prohibition in this case.
Even though approximately twelve hours intervened between the two confessions and even assuming that there was no violence surrounding the second confession, it is inconceivable under these circumstances that the second confession was free from the coercive atmosphere that admittedly impregnated the first one. The whole confession technique used here constituted one single, continuing transaction. To conclude that the brutality inflicted at the time of the first confession suddenly lost all of its effect in the short space of twelve hours is to close one’s eyes to the realities of human nature. An individual does not that easily forget the type of torture that accompanied petitioner’s previous refusal to confess, nor does a person like petitioner so quickly recover from the gruesome effects of having had a pan of human bones placed on his knees in order to force incriminating testimony from him. Cf. State v. Ellis, 294 Mo. 269; Fisher v. State, 145 Miss. 116, 110 So. 361; Reasons. State, 94 Miss. 290, 48 So. 820; Whitley v. State, 78 Miss. 255; State v. Wood, 122 La. 1014, 48 So. 438. Moreover, the trial judge refused petitioner’s request that the jury be charged that the second confession was not free and voluntary if it was obtained while petitioner was still suffering from the inhuman treatment he had previously received. Thus it cannot be said that we are confronted with a finding by the trier of facts that the coercive effect of the prior brutality had completely worn off by the time the second confession was signed.
Presumably, therefore, this decision means that state officers are free to force a confession from an individual *607by ruthless methods, knowing full well that they dare not use such a confession at the trial, and then, as a part of the same continuing transaction and before the effects of the coercion can fairly be said to have completely worn off, procure another confession without any immediate violence being inflicted. The admission of such a tainted confession does not accord with the Fourteenth Amendment’s command that a state shall not convict a defendant on evidence that he was compelled to give against himself. Chambers v. Florida, supra; Canty v. Alabama, supra; Lisenba v. California, supra; Ashcraft v. Tennessee, supra.
Me. Justice Black concurs in this opinion.