voluntary confession
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 404 U.S. 477 - Lego v. Twomey · 1972Most cited · 3,845 citing opinions
admissibility standard
the prosecution must prove at least by a preponderance of the evidence that the confession was voluntary
How the Supreme Court has restated “voluntary confession”
Each Supreme Court definition of “voluntary confession,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “voluntary confession”
Court decisions citing the 6 opinions that defined “voluntary confession” — 10,203 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 6 definitions, chronological · 1924–1972
- ORIGINAL
In the federal courts, the requisite of voluntariness is not satisfied by establishing merely that the confession was not induced by a promise or a threat. A confession is voluntary in law if, and only if, it was, in fact, voluntarily made. A confession may have been given voluntarily, although it was made to police officers, while in custody, and in answer to an examination conducted by them. But a confession obtained by compulsion must be excluded whatever may have been the character of the compulsion, and whether the compulsion was applied in a judicial proceeding or otherwise.
The voluntary or involuntary character of a confession is determined by a conclusion as to whether the accused, at the time he confesses, is in possession of 'mental freedom' to confess to or deny a suspected participation in a crime.
A confession by which life becomes forfeit must be the expression of free choice. A statement to be voluntary of course need not be volunteered. But if it is the product of sustained pressure by the police it does not issue from a free choice.
the question in each case is whether the defendant's will was overborne at the time he confessed'; 'In short, the true test of admissibility is that the confession is made freely, voluntarily, and without compulsion or inducement of any sort.' Whether the confession was obtained by coercion or improper inducement can be determined only by an examination of all of the attendant circumstances.
The question whether a confession was voluntarily made necessarily turns on the 'totality of the circumstances' in any particular case.