Carolina,[912]
the defendant, an illiterate Negro, was apprehended in Tennessee on a
Friday on a warrant alleging no more than a theft of a pistol, and taken
to South Carolina on a Sunday. Without being informed of the contents of
the warrant or of the charge of murder on which he was being held,
without arraignment or advice as to his rights and without access to
family or counsel, the defendant was questioned daily by officers for
periods as long as 12 hours. In addition, he was warned that his mother
also might be arrested for handling stolen property.

In each of these cases there was dissent, and in none was the majority
able to record its views in a single opinion. Justice Murphy and Justice
Rutledge joined Justice Frankfurter, who filed a separate opinion in all
three cases, in declaring that "a confession by which life becomes
forfeit must be the expression of free choice. * * * When a suspect
speaks because he is overborne, it is immaterial whether he has been
subjected to a physical or a mental ordeal. * * * if * * * [his
confession] is the product of sustained pressure by the police it does
not issue from a free choice."[913] On the authority of Chambers _v._
Florida[914] and Ashcraft _v._ Tennessee,[915] Justice Black supported
the judgments reached in all three cases; but Justice Douglas, in
concurring, advocated the disposition of these cases in conformity with
a broader rule; namely that, "any confession obtained during * * * [a]
period of * * * unlawful detention"; that is during a period of custody
between arrest and arraignment, should be outlawed.[916] Justice
Jackson, who wrote an opinion applicable to all three cases, concurred
in the result in Watts _v._ Indiana, presumably on the basis of that
part of Justice Frankfurter's opinion therein which was founded "on the
State's admissions as to the treatment of Watts."[917] Emphasizing the
merit of deferring to the findings of trial court and jury on the issue
of the "voluntariness" of confessions on the ground that they have "the
great advantage of hearing and seeing the confessor and also the
officers whose conduct and bearing toward him is in question," Justice
Jackson dissented in Turner _v._ Pennsylvania[918] and Harris _v._ South
Carolina.[919] "If the right of interrogation be admitted," he declared,
"then * * * we must leave it to trial judges and juries and State
appellate courts to decide individual cases, unless they show some want
of proper