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4 Ashcraft et al. vs. State of Tennessee. First, as to Asherafi. Asheraft was born on an Arkansas farm. At the age of eleven he left the farm and became a farm hand working for others. Years later he gravitated into construction work, finally becoming a skilled dragline and steam shovel oper- ator. Uncontradicted evidence in the record was that he had ac- quired for himself ‘‘an excellent reputation.’’ In 1929 he mar- ried the deceased Zelma Ida Asheraft. Childless, they accumu- lated, apparently through Asheraft’s earnings, a very modest amount of jointly held property ineluding bank accounts and an equity in the home in which they lived. The Supreme Court of Tennessee found ‘‘nothing to show but what the home life of Ashcraft and the deceased was pleasant and happy.’’ Several of Mrs, Asheraft’s friends who were guests at the Asheraft home on the night before her tragic death testified that both husband and wife appeared to be in a happy frame of mind. The officers first talked to Asheraft about 6 P.M. on the day of his wife’s murder as he was returning home from work, Informed ‘by them of the tragedy, he was taken to an undertaking establish- ment to identify her body which previously had been identified only by a driver’s license. From there he was taken to the county jail where he conferred with the officers until about 2 A.M. No elues of ultimate value came from this conference, though it did result in the officers’ holding and interrogating the Asherafts’ maid and several of her friends. During the following week the officers made extensive investigations in Ashcraft’s neighborhood and elsewhere and further conferred with Asheraft himself on several oceasions, but none of these activities produced tangible evidence pointing to the identity of the murderer. Then, early in the evening of Saturday, June 14, the officers came to Ashcraft’s home and ‘‘took him into custedy.’’ In the words of the Tennessee Supreme Court, “They took him to an office or room on the northwest corner of the fifth floor of the Shelby County jail. This office is equipped with all sorts of crime and detective devices such as a fingerprint outfit, eameras, high-powered lights, and such other devices as micht be found in a homicide investigating office, . . . It ap- pears that the officers placed Ashcraft at a table in this room on the fifth floor of the eounty jail with a light over his head and beran te quiz him. They questioned him in relays until the fol- lowing Monday morning, June 16, 1941, around nine-thirty or ten o’clock. It appears that Ashcraft from Saturday evening Ashcraft et al. vs. Staite of Tennessee. 5 at seven o ‘clock until Monday morning at approximately nine- thirty never left this homicide room on the fifth floor.’’* Testimony of the officers shows that the reason they questioned Asheraft ‘‘in relays’’ was that they became so tired they were compelled to rest. But from 7:00 Saturday evening until 9:30 Monday morning Asheraft had no rest. One officer did say that he gave the suspect a single five minutes respite, but except for this five minutes the procedure consisted of one continuous stream of questions. As to what happened in the fifth-floor jail reom during this thirty-six hour secret examination the testimony foilows the usual pattern and is in hopeless conflict.5 Asheraft swears that the first thing said to him when he was taken into custody was, ‘‘Why in hell did you kill your wife?’’; that during the course of the ex- amination he was threatened and abused in various ways; and that as the hours passed his eyes became blinded by a powerful elec- tric light, his body became weary, and the strain on his nerves became unbearable.* The officers, on the other hand, swear that throughout the questioning they were kind and considerate. They say that they did not accuse Ashcraft of the murder until four hours after he was brought to the jail building, though they freely 4 From the testimony it appears that Ashcraft was taken from the jail about ii o’etock Sunday night for a period of approximately an hour ito heip the officers hnat the place Where Ware lived. On his return Asheraft was, for a short time, kept in a jail room different from that in which he waa kept the rest of the time. 5 ‘As the report avers ‘The third degree is a secret and illegal practice.’ Hence the difficulty of discovering the facta aa to the extent and manner it is practiced’? IV Reports of National Committea on Law Observance and Enforcement (Wickersham Commigsion), U. & Government Printing Office, 1931, Lawlesaness in Law Enforcement, p. 3. Station houses and jails are most frequently employed for third degree practices, ‘upstairs rooms or back rooms being sometimes picked ont for thelr greater privacy.’' i4., The Third Degree, p. 170. Cf. Chambers ». Florida, 309 TU. S. 227, 238. 6‘ *Work’ is the term used to signify any form of what ia commonly called the third degree, and may consist in nothing more than a severe cross- examination. Perhapa in most cases it ig no more than that, but the prisoner knows he is wholly at the mercy of hia inquisitor and that the severe croas- examination may at any moment shift to a severe beating... . Powerful lights turned full on the prisoner’a face, or switched on and off have been found effective. . . . The most commonly used method is persistent queation- ing, continuing hour ‘after hour, sometimes by relays of officera, It has been known since 1500 at least + that deprivation of sleep is the most affective torture and certain to produce any confession desired.*’ Report of Committee on Lawless Enforcement of Law made to the Section of Criminal Law and Criminology of the American Bar Association (1930) 1 American Journal of Police Science 575, 679-580, alao quoted in IV Wickersham Report, supra, p. 47.