Opinion of the Court. 309 U.S. First. The State of Florida challenges our jurisdiction to look behind the judgments below claiming that the issues of fact upon which petitioners base their claim that due process was denied them have been finally determined because passed upon by a jury. However, use by a State of an improperly obtained confession may constitute a denial of due process of law as guaranteed in the Fourteenth Amendment. Since petitioners have seasonably asserted the right under the federal Constitution to have their guilt or innocence of a capital crime determined without reliance upon confessions obtained by means 3 were sentenced to death, and the Supreme Court of Florida affirmed. 111 Fla. 707, 151 So. 499; 152 So. 437. Upon the allegation that, unknown to the trial judge, the confessions on which the judgments and sentences of death were based were not voluntary and had been obtained by coercion and duress, the State Supreme Court granted leave to present a petition for writ of error coram nobis to the Broward County Circuit Court, 111 Fla. 707; 152 So. 437. The Circuit Court denied the petition without trial of the issues raised by it and the State Supreme Court reversed and ordered the issues submitted to a jury. 117 Fla. 642; 158 So. 153. Upon a verdict adverse to petitioners, the Circuit Court re-affirmed the original judgments and sentences. Again, the State Supreme Court reversed, holding that the issue of force, fear of personal violence and duress had been properly submitted to the jury, but the issue raised by the assignment of error alleging that the confessions and pleas "were not in fact freely and voluntarily made" had not been clearly submitted to the jury. 123 Fla. 734, 737; 167 So. 697, 700. A change of venue, to Palm Beach County, was granted, a jury again found against petitioners and the Broward Circuit Court once more reaffirmed the judgments and sentences of death. The Supreme Court of Florida, one judge dissenting, affirmed, 136 Fla. 568; 187 So. 156. While the petition thus seeks review of the judgments and sentences of death rendered in the Broward Circuit Court and reaffirmed in the Palm Beach Circuit Court, the evidence before us consists solely of the transcript of proceedings (on writ of error coram nobis) in Palm Beach County Court wherein the circumstances surrounding the obtaining of petitioners' alleged confessions were passed on by a jury. 'Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278. 227 Opinion of the Court. proscribed by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, we must determine independently whether petitioners' confessions were so obtained, by review of the facts upon which that issue necessarily turns.* Second. The record shows About nine o'clock on the night of Saturday, May 13, 1933, Robert Darsey, an elderly white man, was robbed and murdered in Pompano, Florida, a small town in Broward County about twelve miles from Fort Lauderdale, the County seat. The opinion of the Supreme Court of Florida affirming petitioners' conviction for this crime stated that "It was one of those crimes that induced an enraged community . . .” 5 And, as the dissenting judge pointed out, "The murder and robbery of the elderly Mr. Darsey .. ... was a most dastardly and atrocious crime. It naturally aroused great and well justified public indignation. 6 Between 9:30 and 10 o'clock after the murder, petitioner Charlie Davis was arrested, and within the next twenty-four hours from twenty-five to forty negroes living in the community, including petitioners Williamson, Chambers, and Woodward, were arrested without warrants and confined in the Broward County jail, at Fort Lauderdale. On the night of the crime, attempts to trail the murderers by bloodhounds brought J. T. Williams, a convict guard, into the proceedings. From then until confessions were obtained and petitioners were sentenced, he took a prominent part. About 11 P. M. on the following Monday, May 15, the sheriff and Williams took several of the imprisoned negroes, including Williamson and Chambers, to the Dade County jail at Miami. The 'Pierre v. Louisiana, 306 U. S. 354, 358; Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 590. * 136 Fla. 568, 572; 187 So. 156, 157. sheriff testified that they were taken there because he felt a possibility of mob violence and "wanted to give protection to every prisoner . . . in jail." Evidence of petitioners was that on the way to Miami a motorcycle patrolman drew up to the car in which the men were riding and the sheriff "told the cop that he had some negroes that he [was] taking down to Miami to escape a mob." This statement was not denied by the sheriff in his testimony and Williams did not testify at all; Williams apparently has now disappeared. Upon order of Williams, petitioner Williamson was kept in the death cell of the Dade County jail. The prisoners thus spirited to Miami were returned to the Fort Lauderdale jail the next day, Tuesday. It is clear from the evidence of both the State and petitioners that from Sunday, May 14, to Saturday, May 20, the thirty to forty negro suspects were subjected to questioning and cross questioning (with the exception that several of the suspects were in Dade County jail over one night). From the afternoon of Saturday, May 20, until sunrise of the 21st, petitioners and possibly one or two others underwent persistent and repeated questioning. The Supreme Court of Florida said the questioning "was in progress several days and all night before the confessions were secured" and referred to the last night as an "all night vigil." The sheriff who supervised the procedure of continued interrogation testified that he questioned the prisoners "in the day time all the week,' but did not question them during any night before the all night vigil of Saturday, May 20, because after having "questioned them all day [he] was tired." Other ... evidence of the State was "that the officers of Broward County were in that jail almost continually during the whole week questioning these boys, and other boys, in connection with this" case. 227 Opinion of the Court. The process of repeated questioning took place in the jailer's quarters on the fourth floor of the jail. During the week following their arrest and until their confessions were finally acceptable to the State's Attorney in the early dawn of Sunday, May 21st, petitioners and their fellow prisoners were led one at a time from their cells to the questioning room, quizzed, and returned to their cells to await another turn. So far as appears, the prisoners at no time during the week were permitted to see or confer with counsel or a single friend or relative. When carried singly from his cell and subjected to questioning, each found himself, a single prisoner, surrounded in a fourth floor jail room by four to ten men, the county sheriff, his deputies, a convict guard, and other white officers and citizens of the community. The testimony is in conflict as to whether all four petitioners were continually threatened and physically mistreated until they finally, in hopeless desperation and fear of their lives, agreed to confess on Sunday morning just after daylight. Be that as it may, it is certain that by Saturday, May 20th, five days of continued questioning had elicited no confession. Admittedly, a concentration of effort-directed against a small number of prisoners including petitioners-on the part of the questioners, principally the sheriff and Williams, the convict guard, began about 3: 30 that Saturday afternoon. From that hour on, with only short intervals for food and rest for the questioners "They all stayed up all night." "They bring one of them at a time backwards and forwards . . . until they confessed." And Williams was present and participating that night, during the whole of which the jail cook served coffee and sandwiches to the men who "grilled" the prisoners. Sometime in the early hours of Sunday, the 21st, probably about 2:30 A. M., Woodward apparently "broke"- as one of the state's witnesses put it-after a fifteen or twenty minute period of questioning by Williams, the sheriff and the constable "one right after the other." The State's Attorney was awakened at his home, and called to the jail. He came, but was dissatisfied with the confession of Woodward which he took down in writing at that time, and said something like "tear this paper up, that isn't what I want, when you get something worth while call me." This same State's Attorney conducted the state's case in the circuit court below and also made himself a witness, but did not testify as to why Woodward's A constable of the community, testifying about this particular incident, said in part: "Q. Were you there when Mr. Maire [State's Attorney] talked to Walter Woodward the first time he came over there? "A. Yes, sir. "Q. Take his confession down in writing? "A. Yes. "Q. If he made a confession why did you all keep on questioning him about it. As a matter of fact, what he said that time wasn't what you wanted him to say, was it? "A. It wasn't what he said the last time. "Q. It wasn't what you wanted him to say, was it? "A. We didn't think it was all correct. "Q. What part of it did you think wasn't correct. Would you say what he told you there at that time was freely and voluntarily made? "A. Yes, sir. "Q. What he freely and voluntarily told you in the way of a confession at that time, it wasn't what you wanted? "A. It didn't make up like it should. "Q. What matter didn't make up? "A. There was some things he told us that couldn't possible be true. "Q. What did Mr. Maire say about it at that time; did you hear Mr. Maire say at this time 'tear this paper up, that isn't what I want, |