Cardman v. People

JUSTICE SAMOUR delivered the Opinion of the Court.

*1075¶1 "[O]urs is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system-a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charge against an accused out of his own mouth." Rogers v. Richmond , 365 U.S. 534, 541, 81 S.Ct. 735, 5 L.Ed.2d 760 (1961). For this reason, "convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand." Id. at 540.

¶2 Yet Detective Paul Patton coerced…