## Facts

- Hector, an enslaved person, was indicted for burglary involving stolen money.
- After the burglary was discovered around 10:30 p.m., private individuals seized Hector and flogged him to force him to confess.
- The beating continued throughout the night, and Hector screamed under the lash.
- During the beating, Hector stated that if released he would find the money.
- At daybreak, witness McKinney learned Hector was being flogged to compel disclosure and spoke with Hector.
- McKinney told Hector that if he had taken the money he should confess and asked whether he took it; Hector said he did and offered to show where it was.
- Hector indicated the money was at his enslaver’s house and asked that McKinney go with him without the men who had beaten him; the group nevertheless went together.
- No money was found; McKinney then struck Hector several times and left.
- At trial, the court admitted testimony about Hector’s inculpatory statements and instructed jurors to disregard confessions made under “torture or pain, or hope or fear,” but to consider any they found voluntary.
- During trial, a juror became ill and the court discharged the jury.

## Issues

1. Whether Hector’s inculpatory statements, made during and immediately after severe flogging intended to compel a confession, were involuntary and therefore inadmissible.
2. Whether the trial court erred by admitting the confessional evidence and leaving voluntariness to the jury via limiting instructions rather than deciding admissibility as a threshold matter.

## Decision

- The Missouri Supreme Court held that confessions extorted by physical violence and coercion are involuntary and must be excluded from evidence.
- The court rejected the trial court’s approach of exposing the jury to the confessions and instructing jurors to disregard those they deemed coerced.
- The court treated voluntariness as a preliminary admissibility determination for the judge, not a question to be delegated wholesale to the jury under the circumstances shown.

## Legal Principles

- A confession extracted by torture, physical pain, threats, or inducements producing hope or fear is not voluntary and is inadmissible.
- When coercive circumstances are clear and extreme, the court must exclude the confessional statements rather than admit them with instructions to the jury to sort voluntary from involuntary portions.
- Judicial gatekeeping over confession admissibility is required to prevent the jury from being influenced by tainted, coercion-produced statements.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that statements obtained through sustained flogging intended to compel self-incrimination were involuntary and could not be used as evidence, and it assigned to the judge the duty to exclude such confessions instead of relying on jurors to disregard them after hearing them.


Hector (a Slave) v. State, 2 Mo. 166 (Mo. 1829)