Brown v. Mississippi

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Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, (1936), was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that convictions which are based solely upon confessions coerced by violence violate the Due Process Clause.

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[edit] Facts of the case

Three black defendants were accused of murdering Raymond Stewart, whose death occurred on March 30, 1934. Torture was then used in order to extract confessions from the defendants. This was the only evidence used in the subsequent one-day trial, in which they were convicted and sentenced to death. The prosecutor in this case was John Stennis, who later became a United States senator.

[edit] Judgment

In a unanimous decision, the Court reversed the convictions of the defendants, in an opinion delivered by Chief Justice Hughes. It was decided that convictions which result solely from defendants' confessions which are extracted by violence violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees the defendant's protection from self incrimination, such as through torture as applied in this case. The Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process clause was used to apply this provision of the Fifth Amendment to the states. This was one case in a series of cases in which parts of the Bill of Rights have been deemed "fundamental" enough to apply to the states as well as in federal cases.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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