No. It is completely unfair and against the Constitution to use a confession that was scared out of someone. The Court looked at everything that happened: the man was young, poorly educated, held alone, starved, and then threatened with mob violence. A confession given out of fear is not a real choice. Using it in court breaks the basic rule of fairness (due process), so the conviction must be thrown out.

Yes. The conviction should stand. This judge thought the confession was probably fine. But even if it wasn't, he argued that if there was other evidence that the man was guilty, the jury could have just ignored the bad confession and convicted him based on the other facts. So, the conviction should still count.

No. The conviction must be overturned. This judge said the case was simple: the police chief admitted he threatened the man with a mob. That threat alone is enough to prove the confession was forced and illegal to use in court.

Yes, using Payne's confession that the police scared out of him was unfair and against the rules. Looking at everything that happened, especially the police chief's threat about the mob, it's clear Payne only confessed because he was afraid, not because he wanted to. Letting the jury hear that confession was a big mistake that made the whole trial unfair, even if there was other evidence. When an unfair confession is used and the jury finds the person guilty, you can't know how much the confession made a difference, so the case has to be thrown out.

No, the courts in Arkansas looked at everything and decided Payne's confession was given voluntarily. But even if the confession was unfairly obtained, the jury had enough other evidence to find Payne guilty without it. In an earlier case, the Supreme Court said it's okay to find someone guilty based on other evidence even if their confession shouldn't have been used. The rules in Arkansas for deciding if a confession is voluntary are the same as the ones the Supreme Court approved in that earlier case, so the same idea should apply here.

I agree Payne's conviction should be overturned because what the police chief said about the mob makes it clear Payne only confessed out of fear.

—confession was coerced because the interrogating police officer had promised that if the accused confessed, the officer would protect the accused from an angry mob outside the jailhouse door

But where, as here, an involuntary confession constitutes a part of the evidence before the jury and a general verdict is returned, no one can say what credit and weight the jury gave to the confession. And in these circumstances this Court has uniformly held that even though there may have been sufficient evidence, apart from the coerced confession, to support a …

—the following principles of law that the Supreme Court of the United States had previously enunciated: "The use in a state criminal trial of a defendant's confession obtained by coercion—whether physical or mental—is forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment...[E] ven though there may have been sufficient evidence, apart from the coerced confession, to support a …

The Court held that "even though there may have been sufficient evidence, apart from the coerced confession, to support a judgment of conviction, the admission in evidence, over objection, of the coerced confession vitiates the judgment because it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

—recognized that, regardless of the amount of other evidence, "the admission in evidence, over objection, of the coerced confession vitiates the judgment," because

—defendant held incommunicado for three days with little food; confession obtained when officers informed defendant that Chief of Police was preparing to admit lynch mob into jail

However, "there are some constitutional rights so basic to a fair trial that their infraction can never be treated as harmless error."

Such a machine-gun repetition of a denial of constitutional rights, designed and calculated to make petitioners' version of the evidence worthless, can no more be considered harmless than the introduction against a defendant of a coerced confession.

—a confession coerced in fact and found to have been so as a matter of law by the Supreme Court, had been submitted to the jury along with other evidence of guilt.

In determining whether the defendant's confession is the product of a rational intellect and a free will, the totality of the circumstances surrounding the confession must be taken into account

Yes. A confession obtained by coercion, whether physical or mental, is forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment, and its use in a state criminal trial vitiates the conviction. The Court must conduct its own examination of the record to determine if a confession was voluntary. Here, the totality of the circumstances—including Petitioner's age and low intelligence, being held incommunicado for three days without counsel or a preliminary hearing, deprivation of food, and the culminating threat of mob violence—demonstrates that the confession was coerced and not an 'expression of free choice.' The admission of such an involuntary confession violates the fundamental fairness essential to the concept of justice, thus denying Petitioner due process of law. This error requires reversal, regardless of whether other evidence in the record might have been sufficient to convict.

No. The state courts properly held the confession was voluntary, and even if it were deemed coerced, the conviction should stand. Under the precedent of Stein v. New York, a conviction is not constitutionally erroneous if the jury rejected the coerced confession and convicted on the basis of other sufficient evidence. The Arkansas procedure for handling challenged confessions is identical to the one approved in Stein, which allows a jury to determine the voluntariness of a confession and to convict on other grounds if it finds the confession was coerced. Therefore, the conviction should be upheld.

Yes. The judgment should be reversed because the Police Chief's own testimony, confirming he told the petitioner about the possibility of a mob, is sufficient on its own to establish that the confession was induced by fear of mob violence. This fact alone compels the conclusion that the confession was coerced and therefore inadmissible.

Yes, the admission of Payne's coerced confession violated due process. The totality of the circumstances, particularly the police chief's threat of mob violence, shows that the confession was coerced and involuntary. Its admission vitiated the judgment, even if there was sufficient other evidence to convict, because a coerced confession is fundamentally unfair and cannot be considered harmless error. Where a coerced confession is admitted and a general verdict returned, one cannot determine what weight the jury gave the confession. Therefore, the conviction must be reversed.

No, the state courts properly found Payne's confession voluntary based on the record. Even if the confession was coerced, under Stein v. New York, the conviction should stand because there was sufficient other evidence of guilt for the jury to convict without the confession. The Arkansas procedure for determining the voluntariness of confessions is identical to that approved in Stein, so the Stein rule permitting a conviction based on other evidence should control here.

I concur in the judgment reversing Payne's conviction because the police chief's testimony regarding the threat of mob violence requires accepting Payne's claim that his confession was coerced through fear.

Payne v. Arkansas

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