Participant Info
- Case
- Stein v. New York
- Citation
- 346 US 156
- Type
- Dissenting
- Year
- 1953
- Description
In Stein v. New York, Black joins Justice Felix Frankfurter and Justice William Douglas in in dissenting from a Court opinion that allowed defendants to held incommunicado and convicted of murder on the strength of coerced confessions and without an opportunity to cross-examine some witnesses. Black writes: “The Court now holds that it is not enough for a defendant to establish in this Court that he was deprived of a protection which the Constitution of the United States affords him; he must also prove that if the evidence unconstitutionally admitted were excised there would not be enough left to authorize the jury to find guilt. … the Court’s holding and opinion break down barriers that have heretofore stood in the way of secret and arbitrary governmental action directed against persons suspected of crime or political unorthodoxy.”
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