Blackburnv.Alabama

Jesse Blackburn was tried in the Circuit Court of Colbert County, Alabama, on a charge of robbery.¹

He was found guilty and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment.² By far the most damaging piece of evidence against him was his confession, which he persistently maintained had not been made voluntarily.³

The crime with which Blackburn was charged was the robbery of a mobile store on April 19, 1948. By that date Blackburn, a twenty-four-year-old man, had suffered a lengthy siege of mental illness. He had served in the armed forces during World War II but had been discharged in 1944 as permanently disabled by a psychosis. He was placed in an institution and given medical treatment over extended periods until February 14, 1948. At that time he was released from a Veterans Administration hospital for a ten-day leave in the care of his sister. He failed to return to the hospital and consequently was discharged on May 24, 1948. The robbery occurred during this period of unauthorized absence from a mental ward. Blackburn’s medical records further disclose that from 1946 he was classified by the Veterans Administration as one hundred percent incompetent. At the time of his discharge from the hospital both his diagnosis of schizophrenic reaction, paranoid type, and his characterization as incompetent remained unchanged.⁴

Blackburn was arrested shortly following the robbery. Some time after his confession on May 8, 1948, the sheriff reported to the circuit judge that Blackburn had exhibited symptoms of insanity. The judge thereupon had Blackburn examined by three physicians. After receiving their report he concluded that there was reasonable ground to believe that the defendant was insane either at the time of the commission of the offense or at the present time. In accordance with the procedure prescribed by Alabama law, the judge then directed the Superintendent of the Alabama State Hospitals to convene a lunacy commission. When the commission unanimously declared Blackburn insane, the judge committed him to the Alabama State Hospital for the mentally ill until he should be restored to his right mind. Blackburn escaped from the hospital once, only to be apprehended on another charge, declared insane by a second Alabama circuit judge, and sent back to the hospital. Before his return he was examined by another set of doctors who diagnosed his mental condition as Schizophrenic reaction, paranoid type, and declared that he was insane, incompetent, and should be placed in an insane hospital. Except for this brief interlude, Blackburn remained in the hospital for over four years, from July 1948 to October 1952, at which time he was declared mentally competent to stand trial.⁵

At his trial, Blackburn entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. He testified that he could remember nothing about the alleged crime, the circumstances surrounding it, his arrest, his confession, his commitment to the State Hospital, or the early period of his treatment there. He denied the truth of the confession but admitted that the signature on it appeared to be his. When the prosecutor proposed to introduce Blackburn’s confession into evidence, his attorney objected and the judge held a hearing to determine its admissibility. Blackburn’s counsel submitted to the judge the depositions of two of the three doctors who had served on the lunacy commission and who had observed Blackburn during his period of treatment at the State Hospital. These depositions incorporated copies of three significant documents, including the court order directing examination of Blackburn by a lunacy commission, the lunacy commission’s report finding Blackburn insane both at the time of his admission to the hospital on July 29, 1948, and at the time of the robbery on April 19, 1948, and the order which permanently committed Blackburn to the State Hospital.⁶

Evidence concerning the circumstances surrounding the making of the confession was supplied by the Chief Deputy Sheriff. He testified that the interrogation had consumed something like maybe five or six hours on May 8, 1948, and that no one had threatened Blackburn in any way. After the judge ruled that the confession would be admitted, but before it was actually admitted, the Chief Deputy described in somewhat greater detail to the jury the manner in which the confession had been obtained. It developed that the examination had begun at approximately one o’clock in the afternoon and had continued until ten or eleven o’clock that evening, with about an hour’s break for dinner. Thus it was established that the questioning went on for eight or nine hours rather than five or six. Apparently most of the interrogation took place in closely confined quarters, a room about four by six or six by eight feet, in which as many as three officers had at times been present with Blackburn. Blackburn’s counsel again objected to admission of the statement, but the objection was overruled and the confession was submitted to the jury. After the Alabama Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment and held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not require exclusion of the confession, Blackburn petitioned this Court for certiorari. The Alabama Court of Appeals wrote two opinions in this case. After the first, and after the Alabama Supreme Court had denied certiorari, the Supreme Court granted certiorari, later vacated the judgment and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals because it was uncertain whether that court had passed upon the federal question. The Court of Appeals reaffirmed the judgment of conviction, and the Alabama Supreme Court again denied certiorari. The case was then ripe for review, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari once more.⁷