365 U.S. 534, 81 S. Ct. 735, 5 L. Ed. 2d 760 (1961)
On January 9, 1954, New Haven, Connecticut police arrested Rogers on charges of attempted robbery and other crimes committed that day at a local hotel.1 At the time of his arrest, Rogers had in his possession a revolver that had been reported stolen from the home of his nephew. Subsequent ballistic tests tended to show that this weapon was used in a fatal shooting during a liquor store robbery in West Haven, Connecticut on November 21, 1953.2
On January 30, 1954, Rogers was transported without court order from the New Haven County Jail to the office of the State’s Attorney for questioning in connection with the West Haven killing.3 The interrogation commenced at approximately 2 p.m. and continued throughout the afternoon and evening.4 After intermittent questioning by at least three police officers from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. without success, Assistant Chief of Police Eagan was called in.5 When Rogers persisted in his denial, Chief Eagan pretended in Rogers' hearing to place a telephone call directing officers to stand in readiness to bring in Rogers' wife for questioning.6 After the passage of approximately one hour during which Rogers remained silent, Chief Eagan indicated that he was about to have Rogers' wife taken into custody, at which point Rogers announced his willingness to confess and did confess in a statement taken down in shorthand by an official court reporter.7
The following morning the Coroner of New Haven County issued an order that Rogers be held incommunicado at the jail.8 When a lawyer associated with counsel whom Rogers had previously retained called at the jail to see him, he was turned away on the authority of the Coroner’s order.9 Rogers was then transported to the County Court House for interrogation by the Coroner. There he was put on oath to tell the truth but warned that he might refuse to say anything further and advised that he might obtain the assistance of counsel.10 Rogers again confessed to the shooting in a statement recorded by the same official court reporter.11
At trial in the Superior Court, New Haven County, Connecticut, the trial judge heard evidence bearing on the admissibility of the confessions outside the presence of the jury.12 On the basis of the evidence, the trial judge concluded that the confessions were voluntary and allowed them to go to the jury.13 The jury found Rogers guilty of murder.14 On appeal, the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut affirmed the conviction.15 Rogers then sought a federal writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut.16 After an initial hearing, the district judge set aside the judgment of conviction.17 The Second Circuit vacated the district court's judgment and remanded the case.18 On remand, the district judge dismissed the petition, and the Second Circuit affirmed this judgment.19 The Supreme Court granted certiorari.20
Whether the Connecticut trial court and Supreme Court of Errors applied a constitutionally permissible standard in determining the admissibility of the confessions?21
No. The Connecticut trial court and Supreme Court of Errors applied an impermissible standard that incorporated considerations of probable reliability.24 The trial judge admitted the confessions after determining that the pretense regarding Rogers' wife had no tendency to produce a confession not in accord with the truth.25 He instructed the jury that a trick or device which has no tendency to produce a confession except one in accordance with the truth does not render the confession inadmissible.26 The Supreme Court of Errors likewise sustained admission by asking whether the conduct induced Rogers to confess falsely and whether the illegal removal from jail or refusal to admit counsel forced him to make an untrue statement.27
These inquiries, applied to the facts of the six-hour interrogation, the feigned telephone call about Rogers' wife, and the subsequent incommunicado detention and second confession before the Coroner, departed from the constitutional requirement to assess solely whether the state's methods overbore Rogers' will to resist.28
The state courts' use of an impermissible standard that took into account the probable reliability of the confessions rendered the conviction constitutionally invalid. This requires reversal and remand to afford the State an opportunity to retry Rogers under correct constitutional standards.29
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justice Clark
Justice Stewart, joined by Justice Clark, accepted that the state courts gave some weight to the probable truth of the confessions in determining voluntariness.30 He concluded that this did not automatically entitle Rogers to release on federal habeas corpus and that the writ should issue only if a coerced confession was in fact admitted at trial.31 Stewart would have remanded the case to the District Court for a plenary hearing to determine whether the confession was in fact involuntary under Fourteenth Amendment standards.32
He emphasized that the state courts' failure to enunciate the correct test made unquestioning reliance on their findings of fact impossible but did not itself constitute constitutional error warranting immediate release.33