ely suppressed evidence which
would have impeached and refuted the testimony thus given against
him."[937]

On the authority of the preceding case, and without qualification, the
Court subsequently applied this principle in Hysler _v._ Florida,[938]
Pyle _v._ Kansas[939] and White _v._ Ragen.[940] In the first case, the
Supreme Court concurred in the judgment of the Florida appellate court
denying a petition for leave to apply to a trial court for a writ of
_coram nobis_. Supporting the petition filed by Hysler, the accused,
were affidavits signed by one of two codefendants on the eve of his
execution for participation in the same crime and stating that the two
codefendants had testified falsely against Hysler because they had been
"'coerced, intimidated, beaten, threatened with violence and otherwise
abused and mistreated' by the police and were 'promised immunity from
the electric chair' by the district attorney." Having made "an
independent examination of the affidavits upon which * * * [Hysler's]
claim was based," a majority of the Justices concluded that the Florida
appellate court's finding that Hysler's proof was insubstantial and did
not make out a _prima facie_ case was justified. "That in the course of
* * * years witnesses die or disappear, that memories fade, that a sense
of responsibility may become attenuated, that [recantation] * * * on the
eve of execution * * * [is] not unfamiliar as a means of relieving
others or as an irrational hope for self * * * are relevant" to the
determination by the Florida court that "such a belated disclosure" did
not spring "from the impulse for truth-telling" and was "the product of
self-delusion * * * [and] artifice prompted by the instinct of
self-preservation."[941]

Relying largely on the failure of the State to answer allegations in a
prisoner's application for a write of _habeas corpus_, which application
recited that persons named in supporting affidavits and documents were
coerced to testify falsely, and that testimony of certain other persons
material to the prisoner's defense was suppressed under threat and
coercion by the State, the Court, in Pyle _v._ Kansas[942] reversed the
Kansas court's refusal to issue the writ. Inasmuch as the record of the
prisoner's conviction did "not controvert the charges that perjured
evidence was used, and that favorable evidence was suppressed with the
knowledge" of the authorities, the case was remanded in order that the
prisone