Frank M. Miller, Jr. v. Peter J. Fenton, Superintendent, Rahway State Prison, Irwin I. Kimmelman, Attorney General, State of New Jersey

This is a tragic case, made so by the grim death of a young woman, by the abrasive, debilitating psychological ploys used to extract a confession of her murder, and by this court’s refusal to follow more than fifty Supreme Court precedents holding that the question whether a confession is involuntarily given is a mixed question of law and fact, over which our review of the ultimate question of voluntariness is for error of law. The majority’s holding places us in conflict with eight Federal Circuits. Our decision is all the more disconcerting because, as a matter of law, the confession of the…