Gary Glenn Cooper and Robert Earl Calloway v. Gene Scroggy, Superintendent, Kentucky State Penitentiary, and David L. Armstrong, Attorney General

MERRITT, Circuit Judge.

This case concerns the voluntariness and admissibility of confessions. Petitioners-appellants were tried jointly in the Kentucky courts and convicted of robbery and kidnapping. Important elements of the evidence against them were confessions each gave to local authorities shortly after their arrest; the state trial judge found that each petitioner’s confession was voluntarily given. Over two dissents, the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed the convictions. Petitioners then sought issuance of the writ of habeas corpus on grounds that (1) both confessions were coerced in…