Mallory v. United States

Petitioner
Andrew R. Mallory
Respondent
United States
Petitioner's Claim
That being arrested without probable cause and held for a prolonged period without being formally charged invalidated his confession.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
William B. Bryant
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Edward L. Barrett, Jr., Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black, William J. Brennan, Jr., Harold Burton, Tom C. Clark, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter (writing for the Court), John Marshall Harlan II, Earl Warren, Charles Evans Whittaker
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
24 June 1957
Decision
Mallory's confession was ruled inadmissible and his conviction reversed.
Significance
Mallory, together with McNabb v. United States (1943) resultedin the so-called McNabb-Mallory rule, which made confessions inadmissible infederal court if they were obtained from a criminal suspect being held in violation of federal rules requiring that such a suspect be quickly charged.
On the night of 7 April 1954, a woman was raped in the basement of her apartment house in the District of Columbia. She had gone down there to do her laundry, with which she experienced some difficulty. She sought help from the janitor, who lived in the basement with his wife, three sons, and 19-year-old half-brother, Andrew Mallory. Mallory was the only one at home at the time, andhe helped the women. Shortly thereafter, she was raped by a masked man who seemed to resemble him.
Mallory and one of his grown nephews then disappeared from the apartment, butMallory was picked up by police the next afternoon. He was taken with his adult nephew to police headquarters, where they were questioned for nearly twohours before they submitted to lie detector tests. Mallory was the last to betested, and the test was not administered until 8:00 p.m. He had not been given anything to eat or drink since being taken into custody.
After another 90 minutes of questioning, Mallory admitted to the crime. Afterseveral more hours of questioning, he finally signed a written confession, sometime after midnight. He was not formally charged until the next morning, when he was brought before a magistrate judge. His trial was delayed for nearly a year owing to doubts about his ability to understand the proceedings against him. Finally, on the basis of his signed confession, Mallory was convicted in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He then appealed his conviction to the U.S Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Formulates McNabb-Mallory Rule
In 1943, the Supreme Court held, in McNabb v. United States that a confession--even one given voluntarily--obtained while a criminal suspect is unlawfully detained (i.e., held for a prolonged period without being formally charged) is inadmissible in federal court. In Mallory, this rule was reaffirmed. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Frankfurter, the author of the McNabb opinion, stated:

The scheme for initiating a federal prosecution is plainly defined. The police may not arrest upon mere suspicion but only on "probable cause." The next step in the proceeding is to arraign the arrested person before a judicial officer as quickly as possible so that he may be advised of his rights and so that the issue of probable cause may be promptly determined. The arrested person may, of course, be "booked" bythe police. But he is not to be taken to police headquarters in order to carry out a process of inquiry that lends itself . . . to eliciting damaging statements to support the arrest and ultimately his guilt.

The Supreme Court can only overturn criminal convictions in state courts if they violate the due process rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court can, however, formulate rules of evidence that go beyond due processwhen exercising its power to supervise criminal trials in federal court. Theso-called McNabb-Mallory rule imposed strict limitations on the admissibilityof confessions in federal criminal trials, and many feared that the Court might succeed in making the rule applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1968, Congress severely limited the reach of the McNabb-Mallory rule with legislation that spelled out the circumstances under which a voluntary confession can be admitted in federal court.
The Supreme Court, in the meantime, approached the problem of coerced confessions by focusing on the issue of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. These efforts culminated in the landmark Miranda v. Arizona (1966) case, which required thatcriminal suspects be given "Miranda warnings" outlining their Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights before they are even taken into custody.
Related Cases

• McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332 (1943).
  
• Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).

Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Street Acts of 1968
Generally viewed as legislation passed by Congress to curtail the impact of Miranda v. Arizona, this act states that a confession is admissible asevidence if voluntarily given by the suspect.
It is up to the trial judge to determine if the confession was voluntary after considering the amount of time that elapsed between the arrest and arraignment of the defendant making the confession, if the confession was made afterarrest and before arraignment; if the suspect was clearly aware of the natureof the criminal offense at the time the suspect was charged or while makingthe confession; if the suspect realized he was not compelled to make a statement, and if he did, that the statement could be used against him in court; ifthe suspect was aware of his right to counsel; and finally, whether the suspect made the confession without the presence of counsel.
Sources
Legal Information Institute. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/3501.html