Perhaps Justice Felix Frankfurter said it best in Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49, 52 (1949), suppressing in that case a confession coerced by psychological rather than physical means—“There comes a point where this Court should not be ignorant as judges of what we know as men [and women].”

Theretofore, the Supreme Court had astonishingly chosen to disregard legal attacks on confessions that had been contested by defendants in the state courts, as long as allegations of physical force upon these defendants weren’t implicated. For Frankfurter and the Supreme Court, finally, how could the Court ignore what all men and women knew just by being sentient beings—that suspects may indeed just as readily falsely admit crimes they didn’t actually commit based on psychological coercion inflicted upon them?