Case Citator › Lego v. Twomey

Lego v. Twomey

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
404 U.S. 477
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
57 of 57
Citing cases (total)
57
Treatment dates
1982
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. Lego v. Twomey has been limited in a separate setting: all 57 flagged citations have been read, and the confirmed treatment is listed below. In United States v. Thevis, the Fifth Circuit declined to extend Lego's preponderance standard from confession voluntariness to proof of a waiver of confrontation rights.
More on how this was screened

Lego's federal confession rule remains intact. Maine and New Hampshire require stronger proof under their own law, as separately listed below; Lego expressly permits states to do so.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

57 later cases cite Lego v. Twomey; 57 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Lego v. Twomey?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Limited

  • The Fifth Circuit declined to extend Lego's preponderance standard for confession voluntariness to proof that a defendant waived confrontation rights.

    United States v. Thevis · Fifth Circuit · filed

    Because of the intimate association between the right to confrontation and the accuracy of the fact-finding process, however, we also reject the government’s suggestion that the “preponderance” standard accepted by the Supreme Court in Lego (to judge the voluntariness of a confession) and United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 94 S.Ct. 988, 39 L.Ed.2d 242 (1974) (to judge whether a warrantless search was consensual) is also adequate to protect confrontation rights.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Does this case still carry your argument?

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