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2 Asheraft et ql. vs. Staie of Tennessee. As we read the present decision the Court in effect declines to apply these well-established principles. Instead, it: (1) substi- tutes for determination on conflicting evidence the question whether this confession was actually produced by coercion, a presumption that it was, on a new doctrine that examination in eustody of this duration is ‘‘inherently coercive’’; (2) it makes that presumption irrebuttable—ie., a rule of law-—because, while it goes back of the State decisions to find certain facts, it refuses to resolve con- flicts in evidence to determine whether other of the State’s proof ig sufficient to overeome such presumption; and, in so doing, (3) it sets aside the findings by the courts of Tennessee that on ail the ‘faets this confession did not result from coercion, either giving those findings no weight or regarding them as immaterial. We must bear in mind that this case does not come here from a lower federal court over whose conduct we may assert a general supervisory power. If it did, we should be at liberty to apply rules as to the admissibility of confessions, based on our own con- ception of permissible procedure, and in which we may embody re- Strictious even greater than those imposed upon the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, See Bram v. United States, 168 U. 8. 532; Ziang Sung Wan v. United States, 266 U.S. 1; McNabb v. United States, 318 U. 8. 332, 341; United States v. Mitchell, Nos, 514, 515, this Term, decided April 24, 1944. But we have no such super- visory power over state courts. We may not lay down rules of evidence for them nor revise their decisions merely because’ we feel more confidence in our own wisdom and rectitude. We have no power to discipline the police or law-enforcement officers of the State of Tennessee nor to reverse its convictions in retribution for conduet which we may personally disapprove. The burden of protecting society from most crimes against per- sons and property falls upon the state. Different states have different crime problems and some freedom to vary procedures according to their own ideas. Here, a state was forced by an un- witnessed and baffling murder to vindieate its law and protect its society. To nullify its conviction in this partieular case upon a consideration of all the facts would be a delicate exercise of fed- eral judicial power. But to go beyond this, as the Court does today, and divine in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment an exclusion of confessions on an irrebuttable pre- — *. Ashcraft et al. vs. State of Tennessee. a sumption that custody and examination are ‘‘inherently eoercive’’ if of some unspecified duration within thirty-six hours, requires us to make more than a passing expression of our doubts and dis- agreements. I. The claim of a suspect to immunity from questioning creates one of the most vexing problems in criminal law—that branch of the law which does the courts and the legal profession least credit. The consequences upon society of limiting examination of persons out of court cannot fairly be appraised without recognition of the advantage criminals already enjoy in immunity from compulsory examination in court. Of this latter Mr. Justice Cardozo, for an all but unanimous Court, said: ‘This too might be lost, and jus- tice still be done. Indeed, today as in the past there are students of our penal system who look upon the immunity as a mischief rather than a benefit, and who would limit its scope, or destroy it altogether. No doubt there would remain the need to give pro- tection ayaiust torture, physical or mental.’’ Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325.26, . : + aloes This Court never yet has held that the Constitution denies a State the right to use a confession just because the confessor was questioned in custody where it did not also find other cireum- stances that deprived him of a ‘‘free choice to admit, to deny, or to refuse to answer.’’ ‘Lisenba v. California, 314 U. 8. 219, 341. The Constitution requires that a conviction rest on a fair trial. Forced confessions are ruled out of a fair trial. They are ruled out because they have been wrung from a prisoner by measures which are offensive to concepts of fundamental fairness. Different courts have used different terms to express the test by which to judge the inadmissibility of a confession, such as ‘‘foreed,’’ ‘‘eo- erced,’’ ‘‘involuntary,’’ ‘‘extorted,’’ ‘‘loss of freedom of will.’’ But always where we have professed to speak with the voice of the due process clause, the test, in whatever words stated, has been ap- plied to the particular confessor at-the time of confession. It is for this reason that American courts hold almost univer- sally and very properly that a confession obtained during or shortly after the confessor has been subjected to brutality, torture, beating, starvation, or physical pain of any kind is prima facie “involuntary.’’ The effect of threats alone may depend more on