Gallegos v. Nebraska/Dissent Black

by Hugo Black

United States Supreme Court

342 U.S. 55

Gallegos  v.  Nebraska

 Argued: Oct. 8, 1951. --- Decided: Nov 26, 1951

Mr. Justice BLACK, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS joins, dissenting.

Americans justly complain when their fellow citizens in certain European countries are pounced upon at will by state police, held in jail incommunicado, and later convicted of crime on confessions obtained during such incarceration. Yet in part ^[1] upon just such a confession, this Court today affirms Nebraska's conviction of a citizen of Mexico who can neither read nor understand English.

The record shows the following facts without any dispute at all: While working in a field in El Paso County, Texas, on September 19, 1949, the petitioner was arrested by a local deputy sheriff without a warrant. The excuse given for the arrest was that immigration officers had requested it. No charge was ever filed against petitioner in any Texas state court nor was any warrant sworn out against him during the eight days he was kept in the Texas jail. His detention was incommunicado except for repeated questioning by the deputies. Part of the time petitioner was kept in an 8 8 cell with no windows, a cell which a Texas deputy testifying in this case referred to as the 'dark room' or the 'punishment room,' although petitioner was a 'docile prisoner' and did all he was told to do by the officers. It was during this incarceration of eight days that the petitioner gave a confession used to convict him in this case. As is usual in this type of case the deputies say that the confession was wholly 'voluntary'; petitioner says that it was due to fear engendered by his incarceration and the actions of the deputies. Even if the officers' story should happen to be correct, I believe the Constitution forbids the use of confessions obtained by the kind of secret inquisition these deputies conducted.

There are countries where arbitrary arrests like this, followed by secret imprisonment and systematic questioning until confessions are obtained, are still recognized and permissible legal procedures. See 'The Trap Closes' by Robert A. Vogeler with Leigh White, The Saturday Evening Post, November 3, 1951, p. 36 et seq. My own belief is that only by departure from the Constitution as properly interpreted can America tolerate such practices. See Ashcraft v. State of Tennessee, 322 U.S. 143, 154 155, 64 S.Ct. 921, 926-927, 88 L.Ed. 1192; Chambers v. State of Florida, 309 U.S. 227, 60 S.Ct. 472, 84 L.Ed. 716; Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 556, 562-563, 18 S.Ct. 183, 192, 194, 42 L.Ed. 568. I would reverse this judgment.

Notes

1. During petitioner's trial an alleged confession made in Texas, an alleged confession made in Nebraska and a plea of guilty entered in a Nebraska court were introduced in evidence against him. His conviction should be reversed if any one of these three items of evidence were secured in violation of due process of law which the Federal Constitution guarantees. For this reason I consider the Texas confession only.