In the 1985 case Crane v. Kentucky, Benjamin Crane was convicted of murder and robbery based on a confession he made to police. However, during his trial, he argued that his confession had been coerced by law enforcement officers who held him in isolation for long periods and subjected him to repeated interrogations over several days. The trial court refused to allow evidence regarding the circumstances under which the confession was obtained because it deemed them irrelevant after determining that the confession was voluntary. On appeal, however, the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of Crane stating that while voluntariness is a threshold requirement for admission of a defendant's statement into evidence; once met does not foreclose inquiry into reliability or trustworthiness through examination of surrounding circumstances when considering its weight as part of guilt determination process. Therefore, excluding such testimony infringed upon Crane’s constitutional right to present a complete defense.

In the dissenting opinion for Crane v. Kentucky, Justice Byron White argued that the majority's decision was a departure from established precedent regarding the admissibility of evidence related to confessions. He contended that it had always been within a trial judge’s discretion to determine whether or not such evidence should be presented to juries and this case did not present any compelling reasons for changing this practice. Furthermore, he expressed concern about potential confusion and unnecessary complications arising from allowing jurors to hear all details surrounding a confession without proper context or understanding of legal nuances involved in determining its voluntariness. In his view, these issues were best left in the hands of experienced judges rather than laypersons serving on juries.