University of Houston, 4333 University Drive, Houston TX 77204-2000, (713) 743-1050.
© 2013 University of Houston. All rights reserved.
| Title | World voices on the Moscow trials |
| Alternative Title | World voices on the Moscow trials: a compilation from the labor and liberal press of the world |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
|
| Publisher | Pioneer Publishers |
| Place of Creation (TGN) |
|
| Date | 1936? |
| Subject.Name (LCNAF) |
|
| Genre (AAT) |
|
| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
|
| Original Item Extent | 64 pages: 1 illustration; 20 cm |
| Original Item Location | DK266.3.A45 |
| Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304404~S11 |
| Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
| Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
| Use and Reproduction | In Copyright: This item is protected by copyright. Copyright to this resource is held by the creator or current rights holder, and the resource is provided here for educational purposes. It may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without permission of the copyright owner. Users assume full responsibility for any infringement of copyright or related rights. |
| File Name | index.cpd |
| Title | Image 21 |
| Format (IMT) |
|
| File Name | uhlib_2774257_020.jpg |
| Transcript | band was suspected. Then I heard that an Italian boy, who had been in the State penitentiary on a felony charge and was out, had been picked up and confessed. I went to police headquarters. The third- degree room was 8 by 12, furnished by two broken chairs, an old table, some file cases. As I entered the outer room I saw a policeman leaving this room. I heard a loud outcry and entered. I saw a young man kneeling on the floor, with his hands joined and lifted, crying aloud to God to answer his prayer for help. He was saying, "You know, God, I didn't do it. I had nothing to do with it. A girl got me to say this, to help out a detective. They wouldn't believe me now. I am telling truth. I have got to go to the chair for something I didn't do." " 'I interfered, sent the detective out, and questioned the young man myself. I examined him. He had been beaten over the kidneys. On one side were three red marks, on the other one large red mark, and he was weak and in great pain, as from a body beating. He told me: "They are trying to kill me. They have made me confess to something I didn't do. I was still in prison at the time the crime was committed, and you will prove it if you will check the dates." I did so, and found the young man was telling the truth—he had actually not been released from prison at the time the woman was murdered. His story was that a girl, whom he knew, had fallen under the power of a detective, who was using her for his own purposes, and that she had, under pressure from this detective, persuaded him to confess. The essential fact was, they were torturing a man who had a singularly perfect alibi, and they knew it.' " The worthlessness, as evidence, of confessions extracted under compulsion, has been demonstrated hundreds of times. Here are a couple of illustrations from Jardine. "A German soldier charged with robbing his officer, who was tortured repeatedly in order to force him to reveal what had become of the stolen property, under torture accused himself and others of many crimes and even of murders which had never been committed." And shortly before the Revolution in 1793, the Parliament of Paris suspended two Judges from their office who had ordered the execution of a man for the alleged murder of a woman, proved only by his own confession under torture—the woman being discovered alive within two years after the execution of the supposed murderer. Torture as a legal means of extracting evidence is a part of our inheritance from ancient Rome. It was a common practice in the days of the Republic; though, as Blackstone says, "its uncertainty as a test and criterion for truth was elegantly pointed out by Tully: though he lived in a state wherein it was usual to torture slaves in order to furnish evidence: 'Nature sets a limit to what mind and body can bear; between fear of further torture and hope of release, there is no room for truth.' " And Cicero was not the only Roman writer to denounce the practice. 19 |