testified at some point in
the proceeding that he had never in fact confessed, voluntarily or
involuntarily. * * *, inconsistent testimony as to the confession * * *
cannot preclude the accused from raising * * * the issue * * * [that]
the Fourteenth Amendment * * * [voids a] conviction grounded * * * upon
a confession which is the product of other than reasoned and voluntary
choice." In Taylor _v._ Alabama,[906] however, a majority of the
Justices sustained the denial by a State appellate court, in which a
conviction had been affirmed, of leave to file in a trial court a
petition for a writ of error _coram nobis_ grounded upon the contention
that confessions and admissions introduced into evidence at the trial
had been obtained by coercion.[907] Five Justices declared that such
denial was not such arbitrary action as in itself to amount to a
deprivation of due process of law where the circumstances tended to show
that the petitioner's allegations of mistreatment, none of which were
submitted during the trial or the appeal,[908] were highly
improbable.[909]

Finally, in three decisions rendered on June 27, 1949, the Court
reversed three convictions of murder on the ground that they had been
founded entirely upon coerced confessions. The defendant in the first
case, Watts _v._ Indiana,[910] was held without arraignment, without the
aid of counsel or friends, and without advice as to his constitutional
rights from Wednesday until the following Friday, when he confessed.
During this interval, he was held much of the time in solitary
confinement in a cell with no place to sit or sleep except the floor,
and was subjected to interrogation daily, Sunday excepted, by relays of
police officers for periods ranging in duration from three to nine and
one-half hours. His incarceration without a prompt preliminary hearing
also was a violation of Indiana law. Similarly in conflict with State
law was the arrest without warrant and detention without arraignment for
five days of the accused in Turner _v._ Pennsylvania,[911] the second
case. During this period, Turner was not permitted to see friends,
relatives, or counsel, was never informed of his right to remain silent,
and was interrogated daily, though for briefer intervals than in the
preceding case. At his trial, the prosecuting attorney "admitted that a
hearing was withheld until interrogation had produced a confession." In
the third and last case of this group, Harris _v._ South