Beecher v. Alabama/Concurrence Black

by Hugo Black

United States Supreme Court

389 U.S. 35

Beecher  v.  Alabama

 Argued: Oct. 23, 1967. ---

Mr. Justice BLACK concurs in the judgment of the Court reversing the conviction in this case but does so exclusively on the ground that the confession of the petitioner was taken from him in violation of the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which Amendment was made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964).

Mr. Justice BRENNAN, whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and Mr. Justice DOUGLAS join.

I concur in the judgment of reversal. This confession was taken after our decision in Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653. Under the test of admissibility stated in Malloy, the facts plainly compel the Court's conclusion that the petitioner's confession was inadmissible because involuntary. We said in Malloy, at 7, 84 S.Ct. at 1493:

'* * * the admissibility of a confession in a state criminal prosecution is tested by the same standard applied in federal prosecutions since 1897, when, in Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 18 S.Ct. 183, 42 L.Ed. 568, the Court held that '(i)n criminal trials, in the courts of the United States, wherever a question arises whether a confession is incompetent because not voluntary, the issue is controlled by that portion of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States commanding that no person 'shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." Id., 168 U.S. at 542, 18 S.Ct. at 187. Under this test, the constitutional inquiry is not whether the conduct of state officers in obtaining the confession was shocking, but whether the confession was 'free and voluntary: that is, (it) must not be extracted by any sort of threats or violence, nor obtained by any direct or implied promises, however slight, nor by the exertion of any improper influence. * * *' Id., 168 U.S. at 542-543, 18 S.Ct. at 186 187; see also Hardy v. United States, 186 U.S. 224, 229, 22 S.Ct. 889, 891, 46 L.Ed. 1137; Ziang Sung Wan v. United States, 266 U.S. 1, 14, 45 S.Ct. 1, 3, 69 L.Ed. 131; Smith v. United States, 348 U.S. 147, 150, 75 S.Ct. 194, 196, 99 L.Ed. 192.'

Notes