The PEOPLE v. Sims

Defendant was convicted of murder and sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of 199 years. He assigns as error the admission into evidence of a confession which he claims was not voluntarily given.

Defendant confessed after having been held in custody by the police for approximately 19 hours. It is not clear whether his contention that his confession was involuntary is based primarily upon alleged specific acts of coercion or upon the theory that the questioning to which he was subjected during the period of detention was of itself sufficiently coercive as to render his confession…