In the case of Brown vs. Mississippi, three defendants Ed Brown, Henry Shields, and Yanks Ellington were charged and indicted for the murder of Raymond Stewart. Stewart was murdered on March 30, 1934 and the defendants were indicted on April 4, 1934. The defendants pleaded not guilty with their court appointed attorneys. After they were arraigned their trial was set for the following day, and convicted a day later. In the case there was absolutely no physical evidence linking the men to the murder except for their confessions. The defendants testified that their confessions were false and that they were subject to physical torture by the police and some citizens in order to obtain the confessions. When the jurors were given their instructions the defendant’s attorney were informed that if they had any reasonable doubt as to if the confessions were created through coercion or not, then they should not be used as evidence.
The defendants were then moved to the Mississippi Supreme Court for a new trial to determine that if the evidence obtained against the defendants was obtained through coercion and brutality, known to the court and to the district attorney, and that the defendants were denied the benefit of counsel or opportunity to confer with counsel in a reasonable manner. The defendants filed that there was a suggestion of error and that they were denied the used of counsel when the confessions were taken violating the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The grounds of the decision were (1) that immunity from self – incrimination is not essential to due process of law, and (2) that the failure of the trial court to exclude the confessions after the introduction of evidence showing their incompetency, in the absence of a request for such exclusion, did not deprive the defendants of life or liberty