1. A bill of exceptions in the Supreme Court of the District of
Columbia,
held properly settled by the Chief Justice of
that court where filed in due time but after the death of the
justice who presided at the trial. P.
266 U. S. 9.
2. A confession of guilt is voluntary in law if, and only if, it
was in fact voluntarily made. P.
266 U. S. 14.
3. In the federal courts, the requisite of voluntariness is not
satisfied by establishing merely that the confession was not
induced by a promise or threat.
Id.
4. A confession may have been given voluntarily although it was
made to police officers while the maker was in custody, and in
answer to an examination conducted by them.
Id.
5. But a confession obtained by compulsion must be excluded
whatever may have been the character of the compulsion, and whether
the compulsion was applied in a judicial proceeding or otherwise.
Id.
6. Where the undisputed facts show that oral statements and a
written confession, offered in evidence against a defendant charged
with murder, were obtained through compulsion applied by police
officers, they should be excluded from the jury. P.
266 U. S. 15.
289 F. 908, 53 App.D.C. 250, reversed.
Page 266 U. S. 2
Certiorari to a judgment of the court of appeals of the District
of Columbia, affirming a sentence for murder.
Page 266 U. S. 8
MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.
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
Page 266 U. S. 9
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. A writ of certiorari was granted. 263 U.S.
693.
The main question for decision [
Footnote 1] is whether, on the facts disclosed in the
testimony of the superintendent of police, three detectives, and
the chief medical officer of the jail, the trial court erred in
admitting as evidence statements made by the defendant to the
police officers before and shortly after his formal arrest.
[
Footnote 2] Four of the
statements were oral. These, if admissible, were important
evidence. The fifth was a stenographic report of an interrogation
of the defendant conducted by the detectives after the arrest. This
report contained a full confession. The introduction of each of the
statements was duly objected to on the ground that the government
failed to show that it had been voluntarily made and that, from the
testimony of its own witnesses, the contrary appeared. The court
admitted the statements. It later charged the jury:
"The test of the case, and the inquiry that you will have to
Page 266 U. S. 10
make in answer is, did the questioning, did the physical
condition, did the importunate questioning, if you choose to call
it so, render the confession made by the defendant not his own, but
did it substitute for his will the will of another, and thus was it
or not his voluntary act?"
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
Page 266 U. S. 11
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 reexamine 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
Page 266 U. S. 12
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.
On the ninth day, at 20 minutes past 5 in the morning, Wan was
taken from the Mission to the stationhouse and placed formally
under arrest. There, the interrogation was promptly resumed. Again
the detectives were in attendance, day and evening, plying their
questions, pointing out alleged contradictions, arguing with the
prisoner, and urging him to confess, lest his brother be deemed
guilty of the crime. Still the statements secured failed to satisfy
the detectives' craving for evidence. On the tenth day, Wan was
"bundled up," was again taken to the Mission, was again questioned
there for hours, and there "the whole thing was again talked of and
enacted." On the eleventh day, a formal interrogation
Page 266 U. S. 13
of Wan was conducted at the stationhouse by the detectives in
the presence of a stenographer. On the twelfth day, the verbatim
typewritten report of the interrogation (which occupies 12 pages of
the printed record) was read to Wan, in his cell at the jail. There
he signed the report and initialed each page. On the thirteenth
day, for the first time, Wan was visited by the chief medical
officer of the jail, in the performance of his duties. This
experienced physician and surgeon testified, without contradiction,
to the condition of the prisoner:
"[He] found . . . [Wan] lying in a bunk in the cell, very weak,
very much exhausted, very much emaciated, he complained of
abdominal pain, which was rather intense. He told witness, and
witness afterwards saw, that he vomited if he attempted to take
food, that it was difficult or impossible for his bowels to move
unless they were assisted by an enema, witness thought he was very
seriously ill, . . . ordered certain tests by the laboratory, . . .
had his blood examined and his abdomen X-rayed and had him removed
from the cell to the Red Cross room, . . . concluded he was
suffering from spastic colitis [involving contraction of the
bowels]. . . . The result of that contraction would be almost
constant pain, excited by any further additions to the contents of
the tract at that point, and vomiting and persistent constipation.
. . . Witness knows defendant was in bed at least a month after his
treatment was prescribed. From witness' observation and medical
experience, judging from the defendant's emaciation and history he
gave witness, and his condition generally, would say that, when
witness saw the defendant on February 13th he had been ill for a
matter of weeks. . . . He told me he had been talked to all one
night and had not received any medical attention, and had been in
constant pain all of this time and had been unable to eat for days,
and, considering all those facts, I came to the conclusion
Page 266 U. S. 14
that he was so exhausted that he was really he told me also that
he had signed a confession."
"[Then the witness was further questioned by the court.]"
"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?"
"Answer. I say, if he was as sick as that, and in as great pain
as that, he would do anything to have the torture stopped."
The court of appeals appears to have held the prisoner's
statements admissible on the ground that a confession made by one
competent to act is to be deemed voluntary as a matter of law if it
was not induced by a promise or a threat, and that here, there was
evidence sufficient to justify a finding of fact that these
statements were not so induced. In the federal courts, the
requisite of voluntariness is not satisfied by establishing merely
that the confession was not induced by a promise or a threat. A
confession is voluntary in law if, and only if, it was, in fact
voluntarily made. A confession may have been given voluntarily,
although it was made to police officers, while in custody, and in
answer to an examination conducted by them. [
Footnote 3] But a confession obtained by
compulsion must be excluded whatever may have been the
Page 266 U. S. 15
character of the compulsion, and whether the compulsion was
applied in a judicial proceeding or otherwise.
Bram v. United
States, 168 U. S. 532.
[
Footnote 4] None of the five
statements introduced by the government as admissions or
confessions was made until after Wan had been subjected for seven
days to the interrogation. The testimony given by the
superintendent of police, the three detectives, and the chief
medical officer left no room for a contention that the statements
of the defendant were in fact voluntary. [
Footnote 5]
Page 266 U. S. 16
The undisputed facts showed that compulsion was applied. As to
that matter, there was no issue upon which the jury could properly
have been required or permitted
Page 266 U. S. 17
to pass. The alleged oral statements and the written confession
should have been excluded. [
Footnote 6]
Reversed.
[
Footnote 1]
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.
[
Footnote 2]
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.
[
Footnote 3]
Hopt v. Utah, 110 U. S. 574,
110 U. S. 584,
Sparf and Hansen v. United States, 156 U. S.
51,
156 U. S. 55,
Pierce v. United States, 160 U. S. 355,
160 U. S. 357,
Wilson v. United States, 162 U. S. 613,
162 U. S. 623,
Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532,
168 U. S. 558,
Hardy v. United States, 186 U. S. 224,
186 U. S. 229,
Powers v. United States, 223 U. S. 303,
223 U. S. 314,
Bilokumsky v. Tod, 263 U. S. 149,
263 U. S.
157.
[
Footnote 4]
See also Wilson v. United States, 162 U.
S. 613,
162 U. S. 623,
Hardy v. United States, 186 U. S. 224,
186 U. S. 229,
Kent v. Porto Rico, 207 U. S. 113,
207 U. S. 119,
Powers v. United States, 223 U. S. 303,
223 U. S. 313.
Compare Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U.
S. 547,
Brown v. Walker, 161 U.
S. 591,
161 U. S.
596-597,
Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S.
43,
201 U. S. 71,
Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361,
221 U. S. 379,
Perlman v. United States, 247 U. S.
7,
247 U. S. 13.
[
Footnote 5]
This testimony occupies, in its condensed form, fifty pages of
the printed record. The character of the pressure applied is
illustrated by the following extracts from the testimony of the
detectives:
". . . Sometimes witness has sat and talked to him, or rather
talked at him twenty minutes or half an hour, and asked him could
he explain certain phases of this case, without his uttering a word
or making any reply whatever."
"A good many times during the course of the investigation, he
would ask to be left alone, but we did not leave him alone, and we
would ask him a question, and if it was rather pointed he would say
he was tired, to leave him alone, 'I will talk no more to you.'
Sometimes would be 20 or 30 minutes before he would answer or say a
word, . . . asked him the same questions over and over again a
great many times without getting any answer at all. . . ."
". . . Defendant had continuously asked to be alone and not
bothered whenever he was asked a pointed question and if he
answered it, it might implicate him or embarrass him, he would say,
'Let me alone, I talk no more to you tonight, I don't feel well.'
This was done repeatedly whenever he was pressed for an answer to a
pointed question, sometimes we would leave him alone and witness
sometimes stayed there and talked at him for a while until we got
tired of it, . . . told defendant witness thought his sickness was
more in his mind than in his body."
"[On the eighth day at the Mission:] Well, he sat and rolled his
eyes when I asked him why he came out to the house the second time,
why he did not go to the cafe instead of coming away out to the
house, and he sat there and rolled his eyes at me and Burlingame
[another of the detectives] said, 'Answer his question,' and then
he turned to his brother and started in the Chinese language, and
Burlingame said, 'Here, don't speak Chinese, answer Kelly's
question.' Then he raised up with a coat hanger and Burlingame
caught him on the shoulders and said, 'We don't want anything like
that here.' This was about 1 o'clock in the morning, and we left
somewhere around 4 o'clock, not much was said after 4 o'clock, just
talking, Burlingame objected to defendant talking in Chinese,
because he wanted him to answer questions, requested him once and
then sat him down in the chair. . . ."
". . . Defendant was not permitted to sleep or to go back to
hotel. . . ."
". . . Witness did try to force an answer out of him by asking
him to answer the questions, but not by physical force or anything
of that kind, . . . it was on that occasion [on the ninth day at
the stationhouse, after the all-night interrogation at the Mission]
that witness told defendant, 'If you are guilty, and your brother
is innocent, I want to know, for I am holding your brother just the
same as I am holding you.' Witness thinks he said, 'Now is the time
to tell me,' intimating to him that he had been in confinement a
long time and witness wanted to know something about it, they were
both in confinement and witness was anxious for him to tell about
his brother, was satisfied he was guilty but did not tell him so at
that time, was just about that time witness said 'things look bad
for you,' or 'things look black for you,' and you ought to tell me
the truth. . . . Went over practically and rehashed all the case as
far as they had learned about it and related all the circumstances
against him, told him a lot of things, but never offered any
inducement, because witness has had too much experience in that
line."
"[Witness went to the stationhouse 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?"
"A. Well, he had to talk."
". . . Practically every admission he made was in answer to
question witness asked himself, 'had gotten practically everything
that I thought was important,' and left the details to Burlingame
and Kelly."
[
Footnote 6]
Compare Boyd v. United States, 116 U.
S. 616,
116 U. S. 631,
Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383,
232 U. S. 398,
Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.
S. 385,
251 U. S. 392,
Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298,
Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313,
255 U. S. 316,
Bilokumsky v. Tod, 263 U. S. 149,
263 U. S. 155,
and "Progress of the Law 1921-1922, Evidence," (Chafee) 35 Harv.Law
Rev. 428, 439.