holding defendant’s confession was involuntary under the totality of the circumstances, which included the fact that police had obtained grand jury indictment before interrogation; “[t]he police were not therefore merely trying to solve a crime, or even to absolve a suspect[, but] rather concerned primarily with securing a statement from defendant on which they could convict him”
How later courts described this case
- holding defendant’s confession was involuntary under the totality of the circumstances, which included the fact that police had obtained grand jury indictment before interrogation; “[t]he police were not therefore merely trying to solve a crime, or even to absolve a suspect[, but] rather concerned primarily with securing a statement from defendant on which they could convict him”
- concluding that the suspect’s will was overborne by “slowly mounting fatigue” during an eight-hour interrogation involving fifteen different questioners, during which the questioners persisted in the face of the suspect’s refusal to answer on the advice of his attorney and refused his requests to contact his attorney
- finding a defendant’s confession involuntary when the police directed a childhood friend of the defendant to falsely tell the defendant that his job with the police department was in jeopardy if defendant did not confess, and the interrogation process continued for eight straight hours
- finding it impermissible for a police officer to suggest to a suspect, who is also a close friend, that the officer’s future in the police department might be in jeopardy if the suspect did not confess
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by State v. Kekona, 77 Haw. 403 (1994)
In addition, Spano is factually distinguishable.
Distinguished by Morris v. Peyton, 264 F. Supp. 911 (1967)
There being no kangaroo-like proceeding in the instant case, Spano is easily distinguishable from it.
Distinguished by Lonnie Mitchell v. Dan D. Stephens, Superintendent of Arkansas State Penitentiary, 353 F.2d 129 (1965)
Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d 246 (1964), and Spano v. People of State of New York, 360 U. S. 315, 79 S.Ct. 1202, 3 L.Ed.2d 1265 (1959), which are cited to us, are clearly distinguishable, for the surreptitiousness in Massiah and the long and overbearing questioning in Spano are not present here.
Distinguished by State v. Ordog, 45 N.J. 347 (1965)
360 U. S. 315, 79 S. Ct. 1202, 3 L. Ed. 2d 1265 (1959), which are clearly distinguishable on their facts.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Stewart,
whom Mr. . Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Brennan join, concurring.
While I concur in the opinion of the Court, it is. my view that the absence of counsel when this confession was elicited was alone enough to render it inadmissible under the Fourteenth Amendment. '
*327 Let it be emphasized at the outset that this is not a ease where the police were questioning a suspect in the course of investigating an unsolved crime. See Crooker v. California, 357 U. S. 433 ; Cicenia v. Lagay, 357 U. S. 504 . When the petitioner surrendered to the New York authorities he was. under indictment for first degree murder.
Under our system of justice an indictment is supposed to be followed by an. arraignment and a trial. At every stage in those proceedings the accused has an absolute right to a lawyer’s help if the case is one in which a death sentence may be imposed. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 . Indeed the right to the assistance of counsel whom the accused has himself retained is absolute, whatever the offense for which he is on trial. Chandler v. Fretag, 348 U. S. 3 .
' What followed the petitioner’s surrender in this case was not arraignment in a court of law, but an all-night inquisition in a prosecutor’s office, a police station, and an automobile. Throughout the night the petitioner repeatedly asked to be allowed to send for his lawyer, and his requests were repeatedly denied. He finally was induced to make a confession. That confession was used to secure a verdict sending him to the electric chair.
Our-Constitution guarantees the assistance of counsel to a man on trial for his life in-an orderly courtroom, presided over by a judge, open to the public, and protected by all the:procedural safeguards of the law. Surely a Constitution which promises that much can vouchsafe no less to the same man under midnight inquisition in the squad room of a police station.