the Federal Government, the
Court has simply endeavored to ascertain whether the accused enjoyed all
the privileges essential to a fair trial. Thus, without even admitting
that the privilege against self-incrimination was involved, all the
Justices agreed, in Brown _v._ Mississippi,[880] that the use of a
confession extorted by brutality and violence (undenied strangulation
and whipping by the sheriff aided by a mob) was a denial of due process,
even though coercion was not established until after the confession had
been admitted in evidence and defense counsel did not thereafter move
for its exclusion. Although compulsory processes of justice may be used
to call the accused as a witness and to require him to testify,
"compulsion by torture to extort a confession is a different matter.
* * * The rack and torture chamber may not be substituted for the
witness stand."[881] Again, in Chambers _v._ Florida[882] the Court,
with no mention of the privilege against self-incrimination, proclaimed
that due process is denied when convictions of murder are obtained in
State courts by the use of confessions extorted under the following
conditions: dragnet methods of arrest on suspicion without warrant and
protracted questioning (on the last day, from noon until sunset) in a
fourth floor jail where the prisoners were without friends or
counselors, and under circumstances calculated to break the strongest
nerves and stoutest resistance. Affirming that the Supreme Court is not
concluded by the finding of a jury in a State court that a confession in
a murder trial was voluntary, but determines that question for itself
from the evidence, the Justices unanimously declared that the
Constitution proscribes lawless means irrespective of the end, and
rejected the argument that the thumbscrew, the wheel, solitary
confinement, protracted questioning, and other ingenious means of
entrapment are necessary to uphold our laws.[883] Procuring a conviction
for a capital crime by use of a confession extracted by protracted
interrogation conducted in a similar manner was, on the authority of
Chambers _v._ Florida, condemned in White _v._ Texas;[884] and in
Lisenba _v._ California,[885] a case rendered inconclusive by
conflicting testimony, the Court remarked, by way of dictum, that "the
concept of due process would void a trial in which, by threats or
promises in the presence of court and jury, a defendant was induced to
testify against himself," or in