Law: The Third Degree

A smashing judicial blow has been dealt by the U. S. Supreme Court at the so-called "third degree." The substance of Mr. Justice Brandeis' opinion —given when a new trial was ordered in the appeal from a death sentence of a youthful Chinese, Liang Sung Wau, who confessed to having killed, on Jan. 21, 1919, one Dr. Ben Sen Wu and two other members of the Chinese Educational Mission—is that no court should admit as competent evidence a confession obtained by "third degree" methods. In the case at bar, the defendant admitted...

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