In the Brown v. Mississippi case of 1935, three African American tenants were convicted for murder based on confessions obtained through brutal physical torture by police officers in Kemper County, Mississippi. The defendants appealed to the Supreme Court arguing that their Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated as they were coerced into confessing under duress and extreme violence. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned their convictions, ruling that while states have latitude in designing their own criminal procedures, these cannot infringe upon fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions - a clear reference to due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This landmark decision established that involuntary confessions are not admissible evidence in court because they violate due process rights guaranteed by Constitution.

In the dissenting opinion for Brown et al. v. Mississippi, it was argued that the confessions obtained from defendants through physical coercion and torture should be admissible in court as evidence of guilt. The dissenters believed that despite the brutal methods used to extract these confessions, they were still valid testimonies of criminal behavior because they were given voluntarily after being warned about their right to remain silent and having legal counsel present during interrogation. They also contended that excluding such evidence would undermine law enforcement efforts to solve crimes and bring offenders to justice by limiting their ability to use all available means at their disposal, including psychological pressure or physical force if necessary, when questioning suspects or witnesses who may have vital information about a crime but are unwilling or unable to provide it willingly due either fear of reprisal from other criminals involved in the same illegal activities or simple refusal cooperate with authorities out personal animosity towards them.