186                                                                                       FREEDOM IS AS FREEDOM DOES

In 1955 a U.S. Court of Appeals in New York State granted a
prisoner, Santo Caminito, serving a life term for murder, a new
tiial because of mistieatment by the New York City police. Judge
Jerome N. Frank, delivering the opinion of the Court, stated:
"The police interrogated him almost continuously for twenty-
seven hours with but a brief interval for rest in a cell so badly
equipped as to make sleep vhtuaUy impossible for a man already
harried by the questioning. During this long period, the pohee,
in effect, kidnapped him; they kept him incommunicado, refusing
to aUow his lawyer, his family and his friends to consult with
him. . . . The confessions obtained by these loathsome means
were no more evidence than if they had been forged. . . .

)_ "Repeated and unredressed attacks on the constitutional lib¬
erties of the humble will tend to destioy the foundations support¬
ing the constitutional hberties of everyone. The test of the moral
quality of a civilization is its tieatment of the weak and power-
l^less." 1"