روز سوم

AN HISTORIC SUPREME COURT RULING

Lawyer Kroll persevered in his defense of Danny Escobedo.

The case was argued before the Supreme Court, and in 1964, in a landmark decision, the Court reversed Danny’s conviction. Legal aid, said the judges, must be instantly available to a suspect.

“A system of law enforcement that comes to depend on the confession,” one Justice declared, “will, in the long run, be less reliable than a system that depends on extrinsic evidence independently secured through skillful investigation.”

A Justice who declaimed against the decision said, however, “I think the rule is illconceived and that it seriously fetters perfectly legitimate methods of criminal enforcement.”