Watts v. Indiana

Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49 (1949), was a United States Supreme Court case in which Justice Robert Jackson famously opined, "To bring in a lawyer means a real peril to solution of the crime because, under our adversary system, he deems that his sole duty is to protect his client—guilty or innocent—and that, in such a capacity, he owes no duty whatever to help society solve its crime problem. Under this conception of criminal procedure, any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to police under any circumstances."

Watts v. Indiana
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 25, 1949 Decided June 27, 1949
Full case name	Watts v. Indiana
Citations	338 U.S. 49 (more) 69 S. Ct. 1347; 93 L. Ed. 1801; 1949 U.S. LEXIS 2080
Court membership
Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson Associate Justices Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas Frank Murphy · Robert H. Jackson Wiley B. Rutledge · Harold H. Burton
Case opinions
Majority	Frankfurter, joined by Murphy, Rutledge
Concurrence	Black
Concurrence	Douglas
Concur/dissent	Jackson
Dissent	Vinson, Reed, Burton

In this case, a defendant was subjected to rigorous interrogation methods, including being forced to sleep on the floor, resulting in a confession to having committed murder. The Supreme Court ruled that the confession was involuntary and reversed his conviction.