Yes. Getting a confession after 36 hours of non-stop questioning is unconstitutional. The court said this situation was 'inherently coercive,' meaning the setup itself was so pressuring and unfair that no one could truly confess freely. It's a form of mental torture. Since this method would never be allowed in a real trial, it can't be allowed behind closed doors in a police station either.

No. The Court shouldn't just make a rule based on how many hours the questioning took. The real question should be whether this specific person, Mr. Ashcraft, was actually forced to confess against his will. The local Tennessee court and jury heard all the evidence and decided the confession was voluntary. The Supreme Court is overstepping by ignoring the local court's decision and making up a new 'rule of the clock'.

Yes, using Ashcraft's confession violated his rights because questioning him for 36 hours straight without rest was inherently coercive. This super long interrogation made his confession involuntary and it shouldn't have been used as evidence. The Court has to look at the situation independently to see if the confession was forced. The length and nature of the questioning was so coercive that it took away Ashcraft's ability to think and choose freely. The Constitution doesn't allow convictions based on forced confessions, even if the police didn't use physical force.

The majority was wrong to assume the confession was involuntary just because the questioning lasted 36 hours. The right test is to look at how it affected this specific person's free will, not just go by a strict time limit. The majority should have given more weight to the state courts' findings that the confession was actually voluntary based on all the evidence. There was a lot of evidence Ashcraft's will wasn't overpowered, like his calm behavior and what he told his own doctor admitting guilt.

Prior to 1966, a suspect's confession was constitutionally admissible if a court determined that it was made "voluntarily

—the Supreme Court held that 36 hours of virtually continuous interrogation was "inherently coercive."

Compare the cases from state courts dealing with the question whether a confession has been coerced contrary to the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment, where the Court weighs only the undisputed facts.

—the defendant was held incommunicado for thirty-six hours without sleep or rest and questioned continuously by relays of officers and investigators.

The Court has also recognized that police interrogation can be "so inherently coercive that its very existence is irreconcilable with the possession of mental freedom by a lone suspect against whom its full coercive force is brought to bear."

The Constitution of the United States stands as a bar against the conviction of any individual in an American court by means of a coerced confession

"It is well settled that the duty of constitutional adjudication resting upon this Court requires that the question whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been violated by admission into evidence of a coerced confession be the subject of an independent determination here,

"The Constitution of the United States stands as a bar against the conviction of any individual in an American court by means of a coerced confession. There have been, and are now, certain foreign nations with governments dedicated to an opposite policy: governments which convict individuals with testimony obtained by police organizations possessed of an …

The Court based its decision, in part, on the fact that cases considered by the Court over the 50 years preceding Connelly involving the constitutional privilege against compulsory self-incrimination had all "focused upon the crucial element of police overreaching."

The duration and nature of incommunicado custody, the presence or absence of advice concerning the defendant's constitutional rights, and the granting or refusal of requests to communicate with lawyers, relatives or friends have all been rightly regarded as important data bearing on the basic inquiry.

Yes. A confession obtained through a 36-hour continuous and incommunicado interrogation is inherently coercive and its use in a criminal trial violates the Due Process Clause. The undisputed facts of this secret, prolonged interrogation, without sleep or rest, are so coercive that they are irreconcilable with the possession of mental freedom by a suspect. Such a procedure would never be permitted in an open court, and the Constitution does not permit it to be done in secret by law enforcement. The Court does not need to resolve disputed factual claims of physical abuse because the interrogation's circumstances alone are sufficient to render any resulting confession involuntary as a matter of law.

No. The Court should not create a new rule that presumes a confession is coerced based solely on the duration of an interrogation. The proper constitutional test is whether the confession was in fact involuntarily made by looking at the totality of the circumstances and the specific individual's will, giving deference to the findings of the state courts. The majority's 'inherently coercive' doctrine is an unsupported, irrebuttable presumption that substitutes a judgment based on the clock for a fact-based inquiry into whether the defendant's will was actually overcome. The Tennessee courts heard conflicting evidence and found the confession voluntary, a finding this Court should respect rather than imposing its own supervisory rules on state procedure.

Yes, the use of Ashcraft's confession violated the Due Process Clause because the thirty-six hour interrogation was inherently coercive. The prolonged questioning without rest rendered the confession involuntary and inadmissible. The Court must independently examine the circumstances to determine if the confession was coerced. The duration and manner of the interrogation was so inherently coercive that it was irreconcilable with Ashcraft's mental freedom. The Constitution prohibits convictions based on coerced confessions, regardless of whether actual physical force was used.

The majority erred in presuming the confession was involuntary solely based on the thirty-six hour interrogation. The proper test is to examine the effect on the particular individual's will, not a fixed time limit. The majority failed to give proper deference to the findings of the state courts that the confession was in fact voluntary based on the totality of the evidence. There was substantial evidence that Ashcraft's will was not overborne, including his calm demeanor and statements to his own doctor admitting guilt.

Ashcraft v. Tennessee

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Issue:

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