Upshaw v. United States (335 U.S. 410)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided December 13, 1948 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 335 U.S. 410 · 69 S. Ct. 170
- Docket
- No. 98
- Argued
- November 12, 1948
- Decided
- December 13, 1948
- Term
- October Term 1948
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Black
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Justice Douglas, Justice Frankfurter, Justice Black (wrote), Justice Rutledge, Justice Murphy
- Dissenting
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Burton, Justice R. H. Jackson, Justice Reed (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court. The petitioner was convicted of grand larceny in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and sentenced to serve sixteen months to four years in prison. Pre-trial confessions of guilt without which petitioner could not have been convicted were admitted in evidence against his objection that they had been illegally obtained. The confessions had been made during a 30-hour period while petitioner was held a prisoner after the police had arrested him on suspicion and without a warrant. Petitioner’s objection to the admissibility of the confessions rested on Rule 5 (a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and our holding in McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332. Rule 5 (a) provides that “An officer making an arrest . . . shall take the arrested person without unnecessary delay before the nearest available” committing magistrate and when the arrested person appears before the magistrate “a complaint shall be filed forthwith.” Petitioner contended that the officers had violated this rule in detaining him as they did without taking him before a committing magistrate. In the Mc-Nabb case we held that confessions had been improperly admitted where they were the plain result of holding and interrogating persons without carrying them “forthwith” before a committing magistrate as the law commands. In this…
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