In an Alabama state court, petitioner, an uneducated Negro of
low mentality or mentally ill, was convicted of burglary with
intent to commit rape and was sentenced to death. Two confessions
admitted in evidence at his trial were obtained while he was held
in a state prison far from his home, without the preliminary
hearing required by Alabama law and without advice of counsel,
friends or family. The first confession was obtained after five
days of intermittent questioning by police officers for several
hours at a time and the second five days later after more such
questioning.
Held: the circumstances of pressure applied against the
power of resistance of this petitioner, who was weak of will or
mind, deprived him of due process of law contrary to the Fourteenth
Amendment. Pp.
352 U. S.
191-198.
263 Ala. 89,
81 So.
2d 303, reversed and remanded.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner is under sentence of death for the crime of burglary
with intent to commit rape. He seeks reversal of the judgment
through a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Alabama, which
sustained the conviction. 263 Ala. 89,
81 So.
2d 303. Petitioner raised three issues in support of his
position that he had been denied due process of law. He
alleged:
Page 352 U. S. 192
1. Admission into evidence of two confessions extracted from him
under circumstances demonstrating that the statements were coerced
or involuntary.
2. Denial by the trial judge of petitioner's request to testify
about the manner in which the confessions were obtained without
subjecting himself to unlimited cross-examination as to the facts
of the crime charged.
3. Selection of the grand jury which indicted him by a method
that systematically discriminated against members of his race.
We granted certiorari to determine whether the requirements of
due process under the Fourteenth Amendment had been satisfied in
these aspects of petitioner's conviction. 350 U.S. 993. The
judgment must be reversed because of the admission of the
confessions. Therefore, it is unnecessary at this time to decide or
discuss the other two issues raised by petitioner.
The facts essential to the present decision are as follows:
During the early months of 1953, a number of housebreakings,
some involving rape or attempted rape, were committed in the City
of Selma, Alabama. The present trial concerned one of these crimes.
[
Footnote 1] On the night of
April 24, 1953, an intruder broke into the apartment of the
daughter of the city's mayor. She awoke to find a Negro man sitting
on her with a knife at her throat. A struggle ensued which carried
the woman and her assailant through the bedroom, hall, and living
room, where she finally was able to seize the knife, at which point
he fled. These rooms were all lighted. The victim testified
Page 352 U. S. 193
that the attacker "had a towel draped over his head" throughout
the incident; she did not identify petitioner as the attacker in
her testimony at the trial. However, two other women testified to
similar housebreakings (one of which resulted in rape), and they
each identified petitioner as the burglar. This testimony was
admitted at the present trial "solely on the question of intent and
identity of defendant and his motive on the occasion then on
trial." 263 Ala. at 99, 81 So. 2d at 313. This, with the challenged
confessions, was substantially all the evidence concerning the
crime at the trial.
About midnight on May 16, 1953, petitioner was apprehended in an
alley in a white neighborhood in Selma by private persons, who
called the police. The officers jailed him "on an open charge of
investigation." The next day, a Sunday, the questioning that led to
the challenged confessions began. It is, of course, highly material
to the question before this Court to ascertain petitioner's
character and background. He is a Negro, 27 years old in 1953, who
started school at age eight and left at 16 while still in the third
grade. There was testimony by three psychiatrists at the trial, in
connection with a pleaded defense of insanity, to the effect that
petitioner is a schizophrenic, and highly suggestible. His mother
testified that he had always been "thick-headed." Petitioner worked
in a gas station in his home town of Marion, some 30 miles from
Selma. So far as appears, his only prior involvement with the law
was a conviction for burglary of a store in November, 1949; he was
released on parole in January, 1951.
The questioning of petitioner was conducted principally by
Captain Baker of the Selma police. His testimony that he repeatedly
advised petitioner "that he was entitled to counsel and his various
rights" must be viewed in the light of the facts concerning
petitioner's mentality and experience just outlined.
Page 352 U. S. 194
The interrogation began on Sunday, May 17, with a two-hour
session in the morning in Captain Baker's office. That afternoon,
petitioner was questioned for two and a half or three hours, during
part of which time he was driven around the city to some of the
locations of the unsolved burglaries. During this ride, petitioner
also talked to the sheriff of his home county, who had been called
to Selma at petitioner's request, according to Captain Baker's
testimony.
On Monday, petitioner talked with his employer. Captain Baker
continued questioning for two hours in the morning. He testified
that a warrant was served on petitioner in jail, but that
petitioner did not request a preliminary hearing. In fact, he was
not taken before any judicial officer prior to the confessions.
[
Footnote 2] That afternoon,
petitioner was driven to Kilby State Prison, which is located in
another county, about 55 miles from Selma and some 80 miles from
petitioner's home in Marion. The testimony of the responsible
officers was that this
Page 352 U. S. 195
removal was done for petitioner's protection, although no
specific threat against him had been made.
At Kilby Prison, petitioner was kept in the "segregation unit,"
out of contact with other prisoners. He saw only the jailers and
Selma officers who drove over to question him. Petitioner was
interrogated in an office in the prison. On Monday, there was
questioning there for "several hours" in the afternoon and "a
little while" after supper. The next interrogation was on
Wednesday. It lasted "several hours" in the afternoon and into the
evening. The following day, petitioner was questioned for two hours
in the afternoon and about an hour and a half in the evening. That
day, his father came to the prison to see him, but was refused
admittance.
On Thursday evening, the first confession occurred. It was
introduced at the trial through a tape recording. The confession
consists of an interrogation by Captain Baker. Petitioner responded
chiefly in "yes or no" answers to his questions, some of which were
quite leading or suggestive.
Petitioner was questioned again for three hours on Saturday, May
23. That day, a lawyer who came to the prison to see him was turned
away. On Sunday, petitioner's father was allowed to visit his son.
This was the only contact petitioner had during the entire period
in question with family or friend, or, for that matter, with anyone
he knew, except the talks at the beginning of the week with the
sheriff of his own county, in the presence of Selma officers, and
with his employer.
In the second week of his incarceration, on Tuesday afternoon,
petitioner was questioned for about two and a half hours. At this
time, the second confession was made. Like the other, it consists
of responses to questions. The second confession was taken down by
a prison stenographer and signed by petitioner after it was read to
him.
Page 352 U. S. 196
This outline of the facts surrounding the taking of the
confessions comes entirely from the testimony of the State
witnesses, who, under the circumstances, were the only ones who
could testify at the trial on this subject other than the prisoner
himself. He did not testify, because of the trial judge's ruling
that he would be subject to unlimited cross-examination concerning
the offense charged against him. [
Footnote 3] Standing alone, the State's evidence
establishes that the confessions in the present case were not
voluntary within the meaning of the decisions of this Court.
Here, the prisoner was an uneducated Negro, certainly of low
mentality, if not mentally ill. He was first arrested by civilians,
lodged in jail, and then removed to
Page 352 U. S. 197
a state prison far from his home. We do not criticize the
decision to remove the prisoner before any possibility of violence
might mature, but petitioner's location and the conditions of his
incarceration are facts to be weighed in connection with the issue
before us. For a period of a week, he was kept in isolation, except
for sessions of questioning. He saw no friend or relative. Both his
father and a lawyer were barred in attempts to see him. The
protections to be afforded to a prisoner upon preliminary hearing
were denied him, contrary to the law of Alabama. [
Footnote 4] He was questioned for several
hours at a time over the course of five days preceding the first
confession, and again interrogated at length before the written
confession was secured.
There is no evidence of physical brutality, and particular
elements that were present in other cases in which this Court ruled
that a confession was coerced do not appear here. On the other
hand, some of the elements in this case were not present in all of
the prior cases. The objective facts in the present case are very
much like those that were before the Court in
Turner v.
Pennsylvania, 338 U. S. 62, while
the present petitioner was a weaker and more susceptible subject
than the record in that case reveals Turner to have been.
And
cf. Johnson v. Pennsylvania, 340 U.S. 881. The totality of the
circumstances that preceded the confessions in this case goes
beyond the allowable limits. The use of the confessions secured in
this setting was a denial of due process.
Neither
Stein v. New York, 346 U.
S. 156, nor any of the other cases relied on by
respondent stands in the way of this conclusion. In
Stein,
the Court said:
"The limits in any case depend upon a weighing of the
circumstances of pressure against the power of resistance of the
person confessing. what would
Page 352 U. S. 198
be overpowering to the weak of will or mind might be utterly
ineffective against an experienced criminal."
346 U.S. at
346 U. S. 185.
That is the same standard that has been utilized in each case,
according to its total facts.
Cf. e.g., Watts v. Indiana,
338 U. S. 49,
338 U. S. 53;
Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U. S. 596,
322 U. S.
602-605. We hold that the circumstances of pressure
applied against the power of resistance of this petitioner, who
cannot be deemed other than weak of will or mind, deprived him of
due process of law. So viewed, the judgment of conviction in this
case cannot stand.
The judgment is reversed, and the cause is remanded for
proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
[
Footnote 1]
Petitioner apparently was indicted for six of the burglary
incidents.
See 263 Ala. at 96, 81 So. 2d at 310. At the
oral argument, counsel stated that, shortly before the present
trial, petitioner had been convicted of another of these
burglaries, one which had resulted in a rape, and sentenced to
imprisonment for 99 years. It appears that no appeal was taken.
[
Footnote 2]
Alabama law specifically required bringing petitioner promptly
before a magistrate:
"It is the duty of any private person, having arrested another
for the commission of any public offense, to take him without
unnecessary delay before a magistrate, or to deliver him to some
one of the officers specified in section 152 of this title [police
officers], who must forthwith take him before a magistrate."
Code of Ala. 1940, Tit. 15, ยง 160.
Under the cases of that State, violation of this requirement
does not render inadmissible a confession secured during such
detention.
See Ingram v. State, 252 Ala. 497, 42 So. 2d
36. Nevertheless, such an occurrence is "relevant circumstantial
evidence in the inquiry as to physical or psychological coercion."
Stein v. New York, 346 U. S. 156,
346 U. S.
187.
Petitioner was admitted to Kilby Prison on an order or letter
from a State Circuit Judge. The nature of this procedure does not
clearly appear from the record, but it is conceded that petitioner
was not taken before the judge.
[
Footnote 3]
The issue was raised at the trial in this colloquy:
"Solicitor Hare: The State offers in evidence the recording
heretofore testified to by the witness presently on the stand
[Captain Baker]."
"Attorney Hall: If the Court please, the defendant objects to
what purports to be a recording made by this witness, on the ground
that sufficient predicate has not been laid."
"The Court: Overrule the objection."
"Attorney Hall: We except, sir, and we would like to make
another motion. We would like to make an offer to put this
defendant on the stand for the purpose of refuting certain
allegations by the State with reference to the voluntary nature of
what purports to be certain extrajudicial admissions, and for no
other purpose."
"Solicitor Hare: Now, may it please the Court, if the defendant
takes the stand, I insist that he be subject to cross-examination
on any and every item that is in evidence. I am not willing to make
any agreement of limitation."
"The Court: And you are only offering the testimony of the
defendant for the purpose of refuting the voluntary nature of this
recording?"
"Attorney Hall: Just that, sir."
"The Court: I sustain the State. If the State is not willing to
reach a stipulation or agreement on that, but insists that you open
defendant for cross-examination of any and every nature, I overrule
the motion."
(R. 230-231.)
[
Footnote 4]
See note 2
supra.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, whom MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN joins,
concurring.
In joining the Court's opinion, I should like to add a few
words. A case like this is not easy for one who believes very
strongly that adequate power should accompany the responsibility of
the States for the enforcement of their criminal law. But the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has placed limitations
upon the discretion, unbridled for all practical purposes, that
belonged to the States prior to its adoption, and, more
particularly, confines their freedom of action in devising criminal
procedure. It is, I assume, common ground that, if this record had
disclosed an admission by the police of one truncheon blow on the
head of petitioner, a confession following such a blow would be
inadmissible because of the Due Process Clause. For myself, I
cannot see the difference, with respect to the "voluntariness" of a
confession, between the subversion of freedom of the will through
physical punishment and the sapping of the will appropriately to be
inferred from the circumstances
Page 352 U. S. 199
of this case -- detention of the accused virtually incommunicado
for a long period; failure to arraign him in that period; [
Footnote 2/1] horse-shedding of the accused
at the intermittent pleasure of the police until confession was
forthcoming. No single one of these circumstances alone would, in
my opinion, justify a reversal. I cannot escape the conclusion,
however, that, in combination, they bring the result below the
Plimsoll line of "due process."
A state court's judgment of conviction must not be set aside by
this Court where the practices of the prosecution, including the
police as one of its agencies, do not offend what may fairly be
deemed the civilized standards of the Anglo-American world.
[
Footnote 2/2] This record reveals
a course of conduct that, however conscientiously pursued, clearly
falls below those standards. Such conduct is not only not consonant
with our professions about criminal justice, as against
authoritarian methods that we denounce. It derives from an attitude
that is inimical, if experience is any guide, to the most enduring
interests of law.
[
Footnote 2/1]
Flouting of the requirement of prompt arraignment prevailing in
most States is, in and of itself, not a denial of due process.
Cf. McNabb v. United States, 318 U.
S. 332. But it is to disregard experience not to
recognize that the ordinary motive for such extended failure to
arraign is not unrelated to the purpose of extracting
confessions.
[
Footnote 2/2]
"Ours is the accusatorial, as opposed to the inquisitorial,
system."
Watts v. Indiana, 338 U. S.
49,
338 U. S. 54. An
analysis of the particular phase of the judicial process involved
in applying the Due Process Clause to state convictions secured on
the basis of confessions has been attempted in my opinions in
Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401,
324 U. S. 412;
Haley v. Ohio, 332 U. S. 596,
332 U. S. 601;
Watts v. Indiana, supra.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, whom MR. JUSTICE REED and MR. JUSTICE BURTON
join, dissenting.
The setting aside of this conviction, in my opinion, oversteps
the boundary between this Court's function under the Fourteenth
Amendment and that of the state
Page 352 U. S. 200
courts in the administration of state criminal justice. I
recognize that, particularly in "coerced confession" cases, the
boundary line is frequently difficult to draw. But this Court has
recognized that its corrective power over state courts in criminal
cases is narrower than that which it exercises over the lower
federal courts.
Watts v. Indiana, 338 U. S.
49,
338 U. S.
50.
In this instance, I do not think it can be said that the
procedures followed in obtaining petitioner's confessions violated
constitutional due process. The elements usually associated with
cases in which this Court has been constrained to act are, in my
opinion, not present here in constitutional proportions, separately
or in combination. Concededly, there was no brutality or physical
coercion. And psychological coercion is by no means manifest. While
the total period of interrogation was substantial, the questioning
was intermittent; it never exceeded two or three hours at a time,
and all of it took place during normal hours; "relay" tactics, such
as were condemned in
Turner v. Pennsylvania, 338 U. S.
62, and other cases, [
Footnote 3/1] were not employed. True, petitioner's
mental equilibrium appears to have been less than normal, but these
facts were before the trial judge and the jury. The absence of
arraignment, much as that practice is to be deprecated, loses in
significance in light of the State's representation at the oral
argument that this was not an unusual thing in Alabama. As this
Court recognizes, it did not, of itself, make the confessions
inadmissible. Petitioner's removal to Kilby Prison, after
authorization by a state circuit judge, stands on quite a different
footing from the episode in
Ward v. Texas, 316 U.
S. 547. And I am not satisfied that there was any
deliberate purpose to keep the petitioner incommunicado, such as
existed in
Page 352 U. S. 201
Watts v. Indiana, supra; Turner v. Pennsylvania, supra,
and
Harris v. South Carolina, supra. Before the first
confession, petitioner, at his own request, was permitted to see
the sheriff of his home county, and his employer. His father,
although not permitted to see petitioner on the day of the first
confession, [
Footnote 3/2] was
allowed to see him before the second confession. The lawyer who
sought to see petitioner was refused permission because, having no
authority from petitioner or his family to represent him, the
prison authorities evidently thought he was trying to solicit
business.
The Supreme Court of Alabama, after reviewing the record, has
sustained the conviction. 263 Ala. 89,
81 So.
2d 303. I find nothing here beyond a state of facts upon which
reasonable men might differ in their conclusions as to whether the
confessions had been coerced. In the absence of anything in the
conduct of the state authorities which "shocks the conscience" or
does "more than offend some fastidious squeamishness or private
sentimentalism about combatting crime too energetically,"
Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165,
342 U. S. 172,
I think that due regard for the division between state and federal
functions in the administration of criminal justice requires that
we let Alabama's judgment stand.
[
Footnote 3/1]
See, for example, Watts v. Indiana, supra; Haley v.
Ohio, 332 U. S. 596;
Harris v. South Carolina, 338 U. S.
68.
[
Footnote 3/2]
The record is silent as to why the father did not gain
admittance on this first visit.