Brown v. Mississippi

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Brown v. Mississippi
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 10, 1936 Decided February 17, 1936
Full case name: Brown, et al. v. State of Mississippi Citations: 297 U.S. 278
Holding
A defendant's confession that is extracted by police violence cannot be entered as evidence and violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Charles Evans Hughes Associate Justices: Willis Van Devanter, James Clark McReynolds, Louis Brandeis, George Sutherland, Pierce Butler, Harlan Fiske Stone, Owen Josephus Roberts, Benjamin N. Cardozo

Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, (1936), was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that a defendant's confessions that is extracted by police violence cannot be entered as evidence and violates the Due Process Clause.

Contents 1 Facts of the case 2 Judgment 3 See also 4 Further reading 5 External links

[edit] Facts of the case

Raymond Stewart, a white planter was murdered on March 30, 1934. Three black tenant farmers were arrested for his murder. At the trial, the prosecution's principal evidence was the defendants' confessions to police officers. During the trial, however, prosecution witnesses freely admitted that the defendants confessed only after being subjected to brutal whippings by the officers. Torture was then used in order to extract confessions from the defendants. The confessions were nevertheless admitted into evidence. This was the only evidence used in the subsequent one-day trial. The defendants were convicted by a jury and sentenced to be hanged; and the convictions were affirmed by the Mississippi Supreme Court on appeal. The prosecutor in this case was John Stennis, who later became a United States senator.

[edit] Judgment

In a unanimous decision, the Court reversed the convictions of the defendants. The opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Hughes. It was decided that a defendant's confessions that is extracted by police violence cannot be entered as evidence and violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees the defendant's protection from self incrimination, such as through torture as applied in this case. The Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process clause was used to apply this provision of the Fifth Amendment to the states. This was one case in a series of cases in which parts of the Bill of Rights have been deemed "fundamental" enough to apply to the states as well as in federal cases.

[edit] See also

• Confession (legal)
• Torture
• Scottsboro Boys
• List of criminal competencies
• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 297

[edit] Further reading

• Cortner, Richard C. (1986). A “Scottsboro” Case in Mississippi: The Supreme Court and Brown v. Mississippi. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press. ISBN 0878052844. 

[edit] External links

• Full text of case from Findlaw.com