ABSTRACT
CAPSULE: Confessions obtained as a result of coercion and brutality are not admissible in court. FACTS: A deputy sheriff and others went to Brown’s home and asked him to accompany them to the house of a deceased person. While there, Brown was accused of the murder. When he denied the accusation, he was hanged by the neck from a tree limb, let down, and hanged again. Persisting in his claim of innocence, he was tied to a tree and whipped, but was later released. Several days later, the same deputy returned to Brown’s home and arrested him. On the way to the jail, Brown was again beaten by the deputy, who said he would continue beating Brown until Brown confessed. Brown did confess and was held in jail. Two other suspects were taken to the same jail. There they were forced to strip by the same deputy and others and were laid over chairs where they were whipped with a leather strap with a buckle on it. When they finally confessed, the officers left, saying that if they changed their story they would be whipped again. The next day the three were brought before the sheriff and others, at which time they confessed to the crimes. Trial began the next day. The suspects testified that the confessions were false and were obtained by torture. The rope marks on the suspects’ necks were clearly visible and none of the participants in the beatings denied they had taken place. The suspects were convicted of murder and sentenced to death. ISSUE: Are confessions obtained by brutality and torture by law enforcement officers a violation of the due process rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment? YES. SUPREME COURT DECISION: Confessions obtained as a result of coercion and brutality by law enforcement officers violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and are therefore inadmissible in court. REASON: “The State is free to regulate the procedure of its courts in accordance with its own conceptions of policy, unless in so doing it ‘offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked fundamental.’ . . . [T]he freedom of the State in establishing its policy is the
freedom of constitutional government and is limited by the requirement of due process of law. Because a State may dispense with a jury trial, it does not follow that it may substitute trial by ordeal. The rack and torture chamber may not be substituted for the witness stand. The State may not permit an accused to be hurried to conviction under mob domination-where the whole proceeding is but a mask-without supplying corrective process.” CASE SIGNIFICANCE: This case was decided by the Court in 1936, before the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination was made applicable to the states. Instead of using the Fifth Amendment, the Court used the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the Fourteenth Amendment has always applied to state criminal proceedings. This case renders inadmissible in court any evidence obtained as a result of physical torture. The methods used by the law enforcement officers in Brown were extreme, hence it was easy to prohibit their use. Subsequently, the Court ruled that any type of physical coercion was also prohibited. Still later, even psychological coercion was prohibited. All of these culminated in Miranda v. Arizona (see below), in which the test for admissibility shifted from voluntariness to one of “were Miranda warnings given?” Brown represents the first case in which evidence obtained as a result of physical torture in a state court criminal proceeding was held inadmissible by the Supreme Court. If a case similar to Brown were decided today, the evidence would be excluded based on the exclusionary rule and not on the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause.
