Rehearing Denied June 7, 1943. See 319 U.S. 784, 63 S.Ct. 1322, 87 L.Ed. --.

Mr. E. B. Baker, of Chattanooga, Tenn., for petitioners. [318 U.S. 332, 333] Mr. Asst. Atty. Gen. Wendell Berge, of Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, delivered the opinion of the Court.

The petitioners are under sentence of imprisonment for forty-five years for the murder of an officer of the Alcohol Tax Unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue engaged in the performance of his official duties. 18 U.S.C. 253, 18 U.S.C.A. 253. They were convicted of second-degree murder in the District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and on appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit the convictions were sustained. 123 F.2d 848. We brought the case here because the petition for certiorari presented serious questions in the administration of federal criminal justice. 316 U.S. 658, 62 S.Ct. 1305. Determination of these questions turns upon the circumstances relating to the admission in evidence of incriminating statements made by the petitioners.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 31, 1940, information was received at the Chattanooga office of the Alcoholic Tax Unit that several members of the McNabb family were planning to sell that night whiskey on which federal taxes had not been paid. The McNabbs were a clan of Tennessee mountaineers living about twelve miles from Chattanooga in a section known as the McNabb Settlement. Plans were made to apprehend the McNabbs while actually engaged in their illicit enterprise. That evening four revenue agents, accompanied by the Governments informers, drove to the McNabb Settlement. When they approached the rendezvous arranged between the McNabbs and the informers, the officers got out of the car. The informers drove on and met five of the McNabbs, of whom three-the twin brothers Freeman and Raymond, and their cousin Benjamin-are the petitioners here. [318 U.S. 332, 334] (The two others, Emuil and Barney McNabb, were acquitted at the direction of the trial court.) The group proceeded to a spot near the family cemetery where the liquor was hidden. While cans containing whiskey were being loaded into the car, one of the informers flashed a prearranged signal to the officers who thereupon came running. One of these called out, All right, boys, federal officers!, and the McNabbs took flight.

Instead of pursuing the McNabbs, the officers began to empty the cans. They heard noises coming from the direction of the cemetery, and after a short while a large rock landed at their feet. An officer named Leeper ran into the cemetery. He looked about with his flashlight but discovered no one. Noticing a couple of whiskey cans there he began to pour out their contents. Shortly afterwards the other officers heard a shot; running into the cemetery they found Leeper on the ground, fatally wounded. A few minutes later-at about ten oclock-he died without having identified his assailant. A second shot slightly wounded another officer. A search of the cemetery proved futile, and the officers left.

About three or four hours later-between one and two oclock Thursday morning-federal officers went to the home of Freeman, Raymond, and Emuil McNabb and there placed them under arrest. Freeman and Raymond were twenty- five years old. Both had lived in the Settlement all their lives; neither had gone beyond the fourth grade in school; neither had ever been farther from his home than Jasper, twenty-one miles away. Emuil was twenty-two years old. He, too, had lived in the Settlement all his life, and had not gone beyond the second grade.

Immediately upon arrest, Freeman, Raymond, and Emuil were taken directly to the Federal Building at Chattanooga. They were not brought before a United States Commissioner or a judge. Instead, they were placed in a detention room (where there was nothing