In the 1941 case of Ward v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a confession obtained from an African American man named Joe Ward was inadmissible because it had been coerced by police officers through physical abuse and threats of violence. The court found that these methods violated his constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause, which guarantees fair treatment through the normal judicial system. Ward had been convicted for murder based largely on this forced confession in a Texas state court. His appeal to the Supreme Court argued that he had not received a fair trial as required by law because his confession was extracted under duress and should have therefore been excluded from evidence. The Supreme Court agreed with Ward's argument, overturning his conviction and remanding the case back to lower courts for retrial without using any information gained from unconstitutional practices such as coercion or intimidation.

In the dissenting opinion for Ward v. Texas, Justice Hugo Black argued that the defendant's constitutional rights were violated due to an unfair trial process. He believed that the circumstances surrounding Ward's arrest and subsequent confession were questionable at best, with law enforcement officials using coercive tactics to obtain a confession from him without providing access to legal counsel or informing him of his rights. Furthermore, he noted that there was no physical evidence linking Ward to the crime scene and all testimonies against him came from individuals who had been promised leniency in their own criminal cases in exchange for testifying against Ward. Justice Black concluded by stating that these factors combined resulted in a violation of due process under both state and federal laws, thus making it impossible for Ward to receive a fair trial as guaranteed by the Constitution.