Physically Coerced Confession Never Harmless Error

The rule from Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279 (1991)—that the admission of a coerced confession is subject to harmless-error analysis—does not apply to confessions coerced by police through physical violence, the Illinois Supreme Court held Feb. 2. Other state and federal courts have applied harmless-error analysis to the use of confessions that were coerced by police through physical abuse. The Illinois court, however, stressed that Fulminante involved psychological coercion only. The court was among those that had, prior to Fulminante, adopted a rule of automatic reversal for convictions obtained with substantive evidence of confessions extracted though police ...