# Culombe v. Connecticut > Supreme Court of the United States · June 19, 1961 · 367 U.S. 568 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422278 ## Case - **Full name:** Culombe v. Connecticut - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** June 19, 1961 - **Citations:** 367 U.S. 568; 81 S. Ct. 1860; 6 L. Ed. 2d 1037; 1961 U.S. LEXIS 811 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Harlan - **Judges:** Black, Brennan, Clark, Douglas, Frankfurter, Harlan, Warren, Whittaker - **Cited by:** 1,370 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422278 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - holding that the confession of an illiterate, mentally impaired accused was coerced, even though there was no physical maltreatment, after police kept him isolated in their custody, systematically subjected him to questioning over several days, enlisted his spouse to pressure … - holding confession involuntary where accused was held for four days before confession, questioned every day with the stated intention of obtaining a confession, not advised of his right to remain silent, denied a lawyer even though he requested one and confronted with his wife… - explaining that the volun-tariness inquiry requires “the application ... of standards for judgment - informed by the larger legal conceptions ordinarily characterized as rules of law but which, also, comprehend both induction from, and anticipation of, factual circumstances” - explaining that the voluntariness inquiry requires “the application ... of standards for judgment informed by the larger legal conceptions ordinarily characterized as rules of law but which, also, comprehend both induction from, and anticipation of, factual circumstances” - noting that mental incapacity was a relevant factor in determining that holding the defendant — a “mental defective ... with an intelligence quotient of sixty-four” — in effective police custody for four nights and five days, refusing to let the defendant speak with anybody ot… ## Opinion text Mr. Justice Harlan, whom Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice Whittaker join, dissenting. I agree to what my Brother Frankfurter has written in delineation of the general principles governing police interrogation of those suspected of, or under investigation in connection with, the commission of crime, and as to the factors which should guide federal judicial review of state action in this field. I think, however, that upon this record, which contains few of the hallmarks usually found in “coerced confession” cases, such considerations find their proper reflection in affirmance of this judgment. With due regard to the medical and other evidence as to petitioner’s history and subnormal mentality, I am unable to consider that it was constitutionally impermissible for the State to conclude that petitioner’s “Wednesday” confessions were the product of a deliberate choice on his part to try to ameliorate his fate by making a clean breast of things, and not the consequence of improper police activity. To me, petitioner’s supplemental confession on the following Saturday night, which as depicted by the record bears all the indicia of spontaneity, is especially persuasive against this Court’s contrary view. I should also add that I find no constitutional infirmity in the standards used by the Connecticut courts in evaluating the voluntariness of petitioner’s confessions. Cf. Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U. S. 534 . I would affirm. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422278. Public record. Not legal advice.