''Ashcraft v. Tennessee'', 322 U.S. 143 (1944), is a United States Supreme Court case. The defendant in the case, E.E. Ashcraft, was charged with hiring John Ware to

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

Ashcraft's wife, Zelma Ida Ashcraft. Ashcraft and Ware confessed to the crimes and were

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to 99 years in the state penitentiary. Ware and Ashcraft

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

ed, claiming that their confessions were

extorted Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

from them. Ware, a black man, claimed that he confessed because he feared mob violence. Ashcraft - who had been questioned for more than 36 hours, with only one 5-minute break - claimed he was threatened and abused. The Supreme Court of Tennessee affirmed both men's convictions. However, neither they nor the original Trial Court ruled that the confessions were voluntarily made. On this question, they deferred to the jury, which had decided that the confessions were voluntary. After making an "independent examination", the United States Supreme Court reversed both convictions. Justices Jackson,

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and

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dissented because they felt the Supreme Court did not grant sufficient deference to the State Courts' rulings. This case is important, in part, because of the Court's decision not to grant deference to the jury's determination that the defendants' confessions were voluntary.

External links

* {{caselaw source , case = ''Ashcraft v. Tennessee'', {{ussc, 322, 143, 1944, el=no , findlaw =https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/322/143.html , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/322/143/ , loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep322/usrep322143/usrep322143.pdf United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Stone Court 1944 in United States case law United States evidence case law United States Supreme Court criminal cases