In Johnson v. Mississippi (1970), the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of petitioner, Robert Louis Johnson, who was convicted for rape and sentenced to death by a Mississippi court. The conviction was based on an alleged confession which he claimed had been coerced through physical abuse while in police custody. The Supreme Court held that the use of this confession as evidence violated his constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause because it was obtained involuntarily. Furthermore, they found that there were discrepancies between medical reports and testimonies regarding his injuries sustained during interrogation which raised doubts about their origin and severity. Therefore, they concluded that these issues should have been resolved before admitting his confession into evidence at trial.

In the dissenting opinion for Johnson v. Mississippi, 1970, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold Johnson's conviction despite evidence of coerced confessions and denial of counsel contradicted established legal principles. The dissenters believed that the state had not met its burden in proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Johnson’s confession was voluntary and uncoerced. They also expressed concern about how this ruling could set a dangerous precedent by allowing convictions based on potentially unreliable confessions without adequate safeguards to ensure their validity. Furthermore, they disagreed with the majority's assertion that there were no constitutional violations because he did not specifically request an attorney during his interrogation; instead arguing that access to counsel is a fundamental right regardless of whether or not it is explicitly requested by defendants.