318 U.S. 332 (1943)
The petitioners Freeman McNabb, Raymond McNabb, and Benjamin McNabb were convicted of second-degree murder in the District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee and sentenced to forty-five years imprisonment for the killing of a federal Alcohol Tax Unit officer.1 The convictions were affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.2 The Supreme Court granted certiorari because the petition presented serious questions in the administration of federal criminal justice.3
On the evening of July 31, 1940, federal revenue agents attempted to apprehend members of the McNabb family engaged in selling untaxed whiskey near the McNabb Settlement outside Chattanooga, Tennessee.4 During the confrontation in the family cemetery, officer Leeper was fatally shot, and another officer was slightly wounded.5 Shortly after midnight, federal officers arrested Freeman, Raymond, and Emuil McNabb at their home and took them to the Federal Building in Chattanooga, where they were held in a detention room without being brought before a commissioner or judge.6
The McNabbs, who had limited education and had lived their entire lives in the Settlement, were questioned extensively over the next two days by multiple officers without the presence of counsel or relatives.7 Freeman and Raymond were held for fourteen hours initially and subjected to interrogation sessions lasting several hours on Thursday night and Friday.8 Benjamin McNabb surrendered on Friday morning and was questioned for five or six hours before confessing.9 The questioning continued into Friday night until discrepancies in their stories were resolved around two o'clock Saturday morning.10
The petitioners' admissions formed the crux of the government's case against them.11 Barney McNabb was arrested by local police and turned over to federal authorities on Thursday morning.12 After trial the defendants moved to exclude the statements, but the motions were denied and the jury convicted Freeman, Raymond, and Benjamin.13
Whether the incriminating statements made by the petitioners were properly admitted in evidence?14
In the exercise of its supervisory authority over federal criminal justice, a court must exclude evidence obtained through flagrant disregard of the congressional command in 18 U.S.C. § 595.15 This command requires that arrested persons be taken promptly before a committing officer.16 Such disregard undermines the integrity of the criminal proceeding and makes courts accomplices in willful disobedience of law.17
No. The federal officers arrested Freeman, Raymond, and Emuil McNabb shortly after midnight on Thursday and held them in a detention room for fourteen hours without presentment to any commissioner or judge, then subjected them to repeated interrogation sessions over the following two days without counsel or relatives present, while Benjamin McNabb surrendered on Friday morning and was questioned continuously for five or six hours before confessing, all in plain violation of the prompt presentment duty established in the facts of the arrests and subsequent detention.18
The incriminating statements made by the petitioners were not properly admitted in evidence.19
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Reed dissented from the Court's creation of a new exclusionary rule based on supervisory authority.20 He maintained that the proper test for admissibility remains whether the confessions were voluntary under existing precedent such as Hopt v. Utah and Wilson v. United States.21
The mere failure to take the petitioners promptly before a magistrate does not require exclusion.22 The record contains no showing that the omission tended to coerce the admissions.23 No point was made of the failure to commit by defendant or counsel.24
He emphasized that the officers' actions involved no coercion, as objection to the confessions was made only on the ground that they were obtained through coercion, which both the trial court and jury determined against the accused.25 The convictions should stand if the confessions were otherwise voluntary.26 Reed opposed broadening technical requirements that allow defendants to escape punishment through acts of omission not shown to have produced coercion.27
Whether convictions resting on such statements can stand?28
A conviction in the federal courts cannot stand when it rests on evidence obtained in violation of the statutory prompt presentment requirement, because permitting such evidence would stultify the policy Congress has enacted into law.29
No. The petitioners' admissions formed the crux of the government's case against them, and because those statements were secured through disregard of the legal duty to present the accused promptly to a judicial officer, the convictions based on that evidence cannot be allowed to stand.30
Convictions resting on such statements cannot stand.31