1. The instruction to the jury in this case fairly raised the
question whether the challenged confession was voluntary, and did
not deny to the defendant any right under the Fourteenth Amendment.
P.
322 U. S.
601.
2. The Fourteenth Amendment does not forbid the use at a trial
of an accused from whom a confession was coerced of a subsequent
voluntary confession. P.
322 U. S.
603.
3. Where the evidence as to whether there was coercion is
conflicting, or where different inferences may fairly be drawn from
the admitted facts, the question whether a confession was voluntary
is for the triers of the facts. P.
322 U. S.
602.
4. The evidence in this case warranted the inferences that the
effects of the coercion which initiated an earlier confession by
the accused had been dissipated prior to his second confession, and
that the latter was voluntary, and the conviction will not be set
aside as violative of due process. P.
322 U. S.
604.
5. The Fourteenth Amendment protects against such conduct of
criminal trials as amounts to a disregard of that fundamental
fairness essential to the very concept of justice and as
necessarily prevents a fair trial, but does not protect against
mere error in jury verdicts. P.
322 U. S.
605.
138
P.2d 142 affirmed.
Certiorari, 320 U.S. 732, to review the affirmance of a
conviction for murder.
Page 322 U. S. 597
MR. JUSTICE REED delivered the opinion of the Court.
This writ brings to this Court for review a conviction obtained
with the aid of a confession which furnished, if voluntary,
material evidence to support the conviction. As the questioned
confession followed a previous confession which was given on the
same day and which was admittedly involuntary, [
Footnote 1] the issue is the voluntary character
of the second confession under the circumstances which existed at
the time and place of its signature and, particularly, because of
the alleged continued influence of the unlawful inducements which
vitiated the prior confession.
The petitioner was convicted in the state district court of
Choctaw County, Oklahoma, on an information charging him and
another with the crime of murder. The jury fixed his punishment at
life imprisonment. The conviction was affirmed by the Criminal
Court of Appeals, 75 Okl.Cr. ___,
138
P.2d 142,
rehearing, 140 P.2d 248, and this Court
granted certiorari, 320 U.S. 732, upon the petitioner's
representation that there had been admitted against him an
involuntary confession procured under circumstances which made its
use in evidence a violation of his rights under the due process
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. [
Footnote 2]
Page 322 U. S. 598
Prior to Sunday, December 31, 1939, Elmer Rogers lived with his
wife and three small sons in a tenant house situated a short
distance northwest of Fort Towson, Choctaw County, Oklahoma. Late
in the evening of that day, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers and a four year old
son Elvie were murdered at their home and the house was burned to
conceal the crime.
Suspicion was directed toward the petitioner Lyons and a
confederate, Van Bizzell. On January 11, 1940, Lyons was arrested
by a special policeman and another officer whose exact official
status is not disclosed by the record. The first formal charge that
appears is at Lyons' hearing before a magistrate on January 27,
1940. Immediately after his arrest there was an interrogation of
about two hours at the jail. After he had been in jail eleven days,
he was again questioned, this time in the county prosecutor's
office. This interrogation began about six-thirty in the evening,
and, on the following morning between two and four, produced a
confession. This questioning is the basis of the objection to the
introduction as evidence of a second confession which was obtained
later in the day at the state penitentiary at McAlester by Warden
Jess Dunn and introduced in evidence at the trial. There was also a
third confession, oral, which was admitted on the trial without
objection by petitioner. This was given to a guard at the
penitentiary two days after the second. Only the petitioner,
police, prosecuting, and penitentiary officials were present at any
of these interrogations, except that a private citizen who drove
the car that brought Lyons to McAlester witnessed this second
confession.
Page 322 U. S. 599
Lyons is married and was twenty-one or two years of age at the
time of the arrest. The extent of his education or his occupation
does not appear. He signed the second confession. From the
transcript of his evidence, there is no indication of a subnormal
intelligence. He had served two terms in the penitentiary -- one
for chicken stealing and one for burglary. Apparently he lived with
various relatives.
While petitioner was competently represented before and at the
trial, counsel was not supplied him until after his preliminary
examination, which was subsequent to the confessions. His wife and
family visited him between his arrest and the first confession.
There is testimony by Lyons of physical abuse by the police
officers at the time of his arrest and first interrogation on
January 11th. His sister visited him in jail shortly afterwards,
and testified as to marks of violence on his body and a blackened
eye. Lyons says that this violence was accompanied by threats of
further harm unless he confessed. This evidence was denied
in
toto by officers who were said to have participated.
Eleven days later, the second interrogation occurred. Again, the
evidence of assault is conflicting. Eleven or twelve officials were
in and out of the prosecutor's small office during the night. Lyons
says that he again suffered assault. Denials of violence were made
by all the participants accused by Lyons except the county
attorney, his assistant, the jailer and a highway patrolman.
Disinterested witnesses testified to statements by an investigator
which tended to implicate that officer in the use of force, and the
prosecutor in cross-examination used language which gave color to
defendant's charge. It is not disputed that the inquiry continued
until two-thirty in the morning before an oral confession was
obtained, and that a pan of the victims' bones was placed in Lyon's
lap by his
Page 322 U. S. 600
interrogators to bring about his confession. As the confession
obtained at this time was not offered in evidence, the only bearing
these events have here is their tendency to show that the later
confession at McAlester was involuntary.
After the oral confession in the early morning hours of January
23, Lyons was taken to the scene of the crime and subjected to
further questioning about the instruments which were used to commit
the murders. He was returned to the jail about eight-thirty A.M.
and left there until early afternoon. After that, the prisoner was
taken to a nearby town of Antlers, Oklahoma. Later in the day, a
deputy sheriff and a private citizen took the petitioner to the
penitentiary. There, sometime between eight and eleven o'clock on
that same evening, the petitioner signed the second confession.
When the confession which was given at the penitentiary was
offered, objection was made on the ground that force was practiced
to secure it and that, even if no force was then practiced, the
fear instilled by the prisoner's former treatment at Hugo on his
first and second interrogations continued sufficiently coercive in
its effect to require the rejection of the second confession.
The judge, in accordance with Oklahoma practice and, after
hearing evidence from the prosecution and the defense in the
absence of the jury, first passed favorably upon its admissibility
as a matter of law,
Lyons v. State, 138
P.2d 142, 163;
cf. McNabb v. United States,
318 U. S. 332,
318 U. S. 338,
n. 5, and then, after witnesses testified before the jury as to the
voluntary character of the confession, submitted the guilt or
innocence of the defendant to the jury under a full instruction,
approved by the Criminal Court of Appeals, to the effect that
voluntary confessions are admissible against the person making them
but are to be "carefully scrutinized and received with great
caution"
Page 322 U. S. 601
by the jury and rejected if obtained by punishment, intimidation
or threats. It was added that the mere fact that a confession was
made in answer to inquiries "while under arrest or in custody" does
not prevent consideration of the evidence if made "freely and
voluntarily." The instruction did not specifically cover the
defendant's contention, embodied in a requested instruction, that
the second confession sprang from the fear engendered by the
treatment he had received at Hugo.
The mere questioning of a suspect while in the custody of police
officers is not prohibited, either as a matter of common law or due
process.
Lisenba v. California, 314 U.
S. 219,
314 U. S.
239-241;
Ziang Sung Wan v. United States,
266 U. S. 1,
266 U. S. 14. The
question of how specific an instruction in a state court must be
upon the involuntary character of a confession is, as a matter of
procedure or practice, solely for the courts of the state. When the
state-approved instruction fairly raises the question of whether or
not the challenged confession was voluntary, as this instruction
did, the requirements of due process, under the Fourteenth
Amendment, are satisfied, and this Court will not require a
modification of local practice to meet views that it might have as
to the advantages of concreteness. The instruction given satisfies
the legal requirements of the State of Oklahoma as to the
particularity with which issues must be presented to its juries,
Lyons v. State, 138
P.2d 142, 164, and in view of the scope of that instruction, it
was sufficient to preclude any claim of violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
The federal question presented is whether the second confession
was given under such circumstances that its use as evidence at the
trial constitutes a violation of the due process clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment, which requires that state criminal
proceedings "shall be consistent with the fundamental principles of
liberty and
Page 322 U. S. 602
justice."
Hebert v. Louisiana, 272 U.
S. 312,
272 U. S. 316;
Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103,
294 U. S. 112;
Buchalter v. New York, 319 U. S. 427,
319 U. S.
429.
No formula to determine this question by its application to the
facts of a given case can be devised.
Hopt v. Utah,
110 U. S. 574,
110 U. S. 583;
Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455,
316 U. S. 462.
Here, improper methods were used to obtain a confession, but that
confession was not used at the trial. Later, in another place and
with different persons present, the accused again told the facts of
the crime. Involuntary confessions, of course, may be given either
simultaneously with or subsequently to unlawful pressures, force,
or threats. The question of whether those confessions subsequently
given are themselves voluntary depends on the inferences as to the
continuing effect of the coercive practices which may fairly be
drawn from the surrounding circumstances.
Lisenba v.
California, 314 U. S. 219,
314 U. S. 240.
The voluntary or involuntary character of a confession is
determined by a conclusion as to whether the accused, at the time
he confesses, is in possession of "mental freedom" to confess to or
deny a suspected participation in a crime.
Ashcraft v.
Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143;
Hysler v. Florida, 315 U. S. 411,
315 U. S.
413.
When conceded facts exist which are irreconcilable with such
mental freedom, regardless of the contrary conclusions of the
triers of fact, whether judge or jury, this Court cannot avoid
responsibility for such injustice by leaving the burden of
adjudication solely in other hands. But where there is a dispute as
to whether the acts which are charged to be coercive actually
occurred, or where different inferences may fairly be drawn from
admitted facts, the trial judge and the jury are not only in a
better position to appraise the truth or falsity of the defendant's
assertions from the demeanor of the witnesses, but the legal duty
is upon them to make the decision.
Lisenba v. California,
supra, p.
314 U. S.
238.
Page 322 U. S. 603
Review here deals with circumstances which require examination
into the possibility as to whether the judge and jury in the trial
court could reasonably conclude that the McAlester confession was
voluntary. The fact that there is evidence which would justify a
contrary conclusion is immaterial. To triers of fact is left the
determination of the truth or error of the testimony of prisoner
and official alike. It is beyond question that, if the triers of
fact accepted as true the evidence of the immediate events at
McAlester which were detailed by Warden Dunn and the other
witnesses, the verdict would be that the confession was voluntary,
so that the petitioner's case rests upon the theory that the
McAlester confession was the unavoidable outgrowth of the events at
Hugo.
The Fourteenth Amendment does not protect one who has admitted
his guilt because of forbidden inducements against the use at trial
of his subsequent confessions under all possible circumstances. The
admissibility of the later confession depends upon the same test --
is it voluntary. Of course, the fact that the earlier statement was
obtained from the prisoner by coercion is to be considered in
appraising the character of the later confession. The effect of
earlier abuse may be so clear as to forbid any other inference than
that it dominated the mind of the accused to such an extent that
the later confession is involuntary. If the relation between the
earlier and later confession is not so close that one must say the
facts of one control the character of the other, the inference is
one for the triers of fact, and their conclusion, in such an
uncertain situation, that the confession should be admitted as
voluntary cannot be a denial of due process.
Canty v.
Alabama, 309 U.S. 629, cannot be said to go further than to
hold that the admission of confessions obtained by acts of
oppression is sufficient to require a reversal of a state
conviction by this Court. Our judgment there relied solely upon
Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227. The
Oklahoma
Page 322 U. S. 604
Criminal Court of Appeals in the present case decided that the
evidence would justify a determination that the effect of a prior
coercion was dissipated before the second confession, and we
agree.
Petitioner suggests a presumption that earlier abuses render
subsequent confessions involuntary unless there is clear and
definite evidence to overcome the presumption. We need not analyze
this contention further than to say that, in this case, there is
evidence for the state which, if believed, would make it abundantly
clear that the events at Hugo did not bring about the confession at
McAlester.
In our view, the earlier events at Hugo do not lead unescapably
to the conclusion that the later McAlester confession was brought
about by the earlier mistreatments. The McAlester confession was
separated from the early morning statement by a full twelve hours.
It followed the prisoner's transfer from the control of the
sheriff's force to that of the warden. One person who had been
present during a part of the time while the Hugo interrogation was
in progress was present at McAlester, it is true, but he was not
among those charged with abusing Lyons during the questioning at
Hugo. There was evidence from others present that Lyons readily
confessed without any show of force or threats within a very short
time of his surrender to Warden Dunn and after being warned by Dunn
that anything he might say would be used against him and that he
should not "make a statement unless he voluntarily wanted to."
Lyons, as a former inmate of the institution, was acquainted with
the warden. The petitioner testified to nothing in the past that
would indicate any reason for him to fear mistreatment there. The
fact that Lyons, a few days later, frankly admitted the killings to
a sergeant of the prison guard, a former acquaintance from his own
locality, under circumstances free of coercion suggests strongly
that the petitioner had concluded that it was wise to make a clean
breast of his guilt, and that
Page 322 U. S. 605
his confession to Dunn was voluntary. The answers to the
warden's questions, as transcribed by a prison stenographer,
contain statements correcting and supplementing the questioner's
information, and do not appear to be mere supine attempts to give
the desired response to leading questions.
The Fourteenth Amendment is a protection against criminal trials
in state courts conducted in such a manner as amounts to a
disregard of "that fundamental fairness essential to the very
concept of justice," and in a way that "necessarily prevent[s] a
fair trial."
Lisenba v. California, 314 U.
S. 219,
314 U. S. 236.
A coerced confession is offensive to basic standards of justice not
because the victim has a legal grievance against the police, but
because declarations procured by torture are not premises from
which a civilized forum will infer guilt. The Fourteenth Amendment
does not provide review of mere error in jury verdicts, even though
the error concerns the voluntary character of a confession. We
cannot say that an inference of guilt based in part upon Lyons'
McAlester confession is so illogical and unreasonable as to deny
the petitioner a fair trial.
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS concurs in the result.
MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE dissents.
[
Footnote 1]
Whether or not the other evidence in the record is sufficient to
justify the general verdict of guilty is not necessary to consider.
The confession was introduced over defendant's objection. If such
admission of this confession denied a constitutional right to
defendant, the error requires reversal.
Bram v. United
States, 168 U. S. 532,
168 U. S.
540-542.
Cf. Stromberg v. California,
283 U. S. 359,
283 U. S.
367-368;
Williams v. North Carolina,
317 U. S. 287,
317 U. S.
291-292.
[
Footnote 2]
In petitioner's brief, a claim is made that Oklahoma denied to
him the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth
Amendment. Apparently petitioner relies upon his undue detention
without preliminary examination, which was in violation of the
state criminal procedure as a denial by Oklahoma of equal
protection of the law. But the effect of the mere denial of a
prompt examining trial is a matter of state, not of federal, law.
To refuse this is not a denial of equal protection under the
Fourteenth Amendment, although it is a fact for consideration on an
allegation that a confession used at the trial was coerced.
Cf.
McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332,
318 U. S. 340;
United States v. Mitchell, 322 U. S.
65.
MR. JUSTICE MURPHY, dissenting.
This flagrant abuse by a state of the rights on 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,
Page 322 U. S. 606
309 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, 242 S.W. 952;
Fisher
v. State, 145 Miss. 116, 110 So. 361;
Reason v.
State, 94 Miss. 290, 48 So. 820;
Whitley v. State, 78
Miss. 255, 28 So. 852;
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
Page 322 U. S. 607
by 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.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK concurs in this opinion.