Cite as: 530 U. S. 428 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
evaluated the admissibility of a suspect's confession under a voluntariness test. The roots of this test developed in the common law, as the courts of England and then the United States recognized that coerced confessions are inherently un-trustworthy. See, e. g., King v. Rudd, 1 Leach 115, 117-118, 122-123, 168 Eng. Rep. 160, 161, 164 (K. B. 1783) (Lord Mans-field, C. J.) (stating that the English courts excluded confessions obtained by threats and promises); King v. Warick-shall, 1 Leach 262, 263-264, 168 Eng. Rep. 234, 235 (K. B. 1783) ("A free and voluntary confession is deserving of the highest credit, because it is presumed to flow from the strongest sense of guilt . . . but a confession forced from the mind by the flattery of hope, or by the torture of fear, comes in so questionable a shape . . . that no credit ought to be given to it; and therefore it is rejected"); King v. Parratt, 4 Car. & P. 570, 172 Eng. Rep. 829 (N. P. 1831); Queen v. Garner, 1 Den. 329, 169 Eng. Rep. 267 (Ct. Crim. App. 1848); Queen v. Baldry, 2 Den. 430, 169 Eng. Rep. 568 (Ct. Crim. App. 1852); Hopt v. Territory of Utah, 110 U. S. 574 (1884); Pierce v. United States, 160 U. S. 355, 357 (1896). Over time, our cases recognized two constitutional bases for the requirement that a confession be voluntary to be admitted into evidence: the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e. g., Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532, 542 (1897) (stating that the voluntariness test "is controlled by that portion of the Fifth Amendment . . . commanding that no person 'shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself' "); Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278 (1936) (reversing a criminal conviction under the Due Process Clause because it was based on a confession obtained by physical coercion).
While Bram was decided before Brown and its progeny, for the middle third of the 20th century our cases based the rule against admitting coerced confessions primarily, if not exclusively, on notions of due process. We applied the
433
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007