Jackson v. Denno

Jackson (defendant) was interrogated in the hospital while awaiting surgery for gunshot wounds and admitted to a robbery and shooting a police officer. Under New York procedure, the trial judge made only a preliminary voluntariness ruling, and unless he found the confession could not possibly be voluntary under any view of the evidence, the jury itself decided voluntariness and truthfulness together, without recording separate findings. Jackson was convicted; a federal habeas petition was denied, and he appealed to the Supreme Court.