The doctrine of corpus delicti is the requirement that the state prove that a crime has been committed prior to allowing a confession to be admitted into evidence. This doctrine can be traced back nearly 100 years in Indiana jurisprudence. Most other states and many other countries historically required a showing of corpus delicti prior to allowing the introduction of a confession. This practice has been described as having outlived its usefulness and as "an invitation to murder." In today’s post Miranda v Arizona era, the corpus delicti doctrine has been thoroughly disparaged by commentators and ultimately rejected by several states and the federal courts. In Indiana, the concept has survived, however the scope of the corpus delicti rule has been steadily diminished.
This article will chronicle the history of corpus delicti in Indiana. It will describe the Supreme Court’s expressed concerns about the doctrine’s continuing viability, the rationale for the imposition of corpus delicti requirements and the doctrine’s efficacy in meeting these goals.
Alternatives will be explored including the "modified corpus delicti" rule, known as confession corroboration or a trustworthiness requirement. An analysis of the practical effects of the doctrine on present-day murder prosecutions will be included. Finally, conclusions will be drawn concerning the potential effects of the abolition of the corpus delicti requirement in Indiana.
Historical perspective of Indiana’s corpus delicti doctrine
The doctrine of corpus delicti can be found in cases at the turn of the century. Corpus delicti was defined as "proof that the specific crime charged has actually been committed by some one." In reported cases, the Indiana Supreme Court accepted the minority view that the only requirement for the admissibility of a confession was some independent evidence that corroborated the confession.
Prior to Parker v. State, decided in 1949, Indiana courts allowed confessions to be admitted into evidence where there was some corroborating evidence, even though that evidence did not prove corpus delicti beyond a reasonable doubt. Trial courts were allowed to consider the independent evidence in combination with the confession to determine whether corpus delicti had been proven.
In Parker, the Indiana Supreme Court, relying upon legal commentators and treatises, wrote: "Over the years" it has been established that the corroboration required is that the offense charged has been committed, not of incidental facts stated in the confession. In Parker the Court ruled that "corroboration of a confession does not necessarily prove the corpus delicti." With this holding, the Indiana law of corpus delicti was dramatically altered.
The Court's reversal of the conviction in Parker may be best explained by an examination of the unique facts of the case, especially focusing on Parker's confession. It may be concluded that the Court found the confession lacking in trustworthiness. In assessing the Court's reasoning, it must be noted that Parker was decided nearly 20 years before the United States Supreme Court ruling in Miranda v. Arizona. The facts in Parker are detailed in the decision. At the time of her disappearance, Parker had lived with Lillian Johnson for about two years. In April 1943, she vanished and was never seen again.
Johnson's employer received a telegram, purportedly sent by Johnson, several days after her disappearance, resigning her position and indicating that she was moving to Wyoming. On the same day that Johnson disappeared, Parker left town.
Four years later, on Sept. 18, 1947, Parker was arrested for an unrelated and never-charged offense. On that date, he was questioned about Johnson's disappearance. Despite the fact that the charge for which he was arrested "d [id] not seem to have materialized the police continued to hold him and question him. As a result of this questioning, on Sept. 20, 1947, Parker provided a written confession, admitting to killing Johnson. The police "checked the details" of that confession and concluded that Parker had not told the truth. So the police continued to "question him further."
On Sept. 22, 1947, Parker confessed, telling in detail how he had killed and dismembered Johnson. Parker identified three places where he had scattered Johnson's body parts. Police found a skull and the upper part of a skeleton near one place designated. There was "absolutely no evidence of any probative value to identify the bones as those of Lillian Johnson and there was no direct evidence of her death." The Court ruled that the state had failed to prove a corpus delicti and reversed Parker's conviction.
The Parker Court ruled that circumstantial evidence alone would support a finding of corpus delicti. It held that there was "no evidence of any probative force," except for the admissions and confessions of the accused.
While prior cases had suggested that the state had to prove the corpus delicti "beyond a reasonable doubt by independent evidence, Parker did not adopt that standard. Parker was silent as to the quantum of proof required, finding only that no probative evidence had been introduced in that case.
Nine years later, in Brown v. Indiana, the Court analyzed a corpus delicti challenge, where the defendant, convicted of murder and robbery and sentenced to death, did not challenge the voluntariness of his confession. Brown reiterated the law that circumstantial evidence alone would support a finding of corpus delicti. In that case the Supreme Court further examined whether the "specific" crime charged must be established by independent evidence before a confession is admissible.
In Brown, the body of the victim was found some eight months after her disappearance. There was no evidence to show that she had been killed, except that the body was not buried in "the customary manner but was decomposed and under a pile of stone and trash, obviously concealed by some person. The Court held that any reasonable person would, from those facts alone, come to the conclusion that she had been killed or murdered by someone, finding that "a strong inference of homicide" was raised.
Brown argued that the physical evidence, upon which the corpus delicti was found, would never have been discovered but for his confession. The Court, conceding the accuracy of the argument, nonetheless held that:
These physical items, when discovered, constitute independent evidence in themselves, whether their discovery results from statements of the appellant or from some other source or accident. These items of evidence stand independently as circumstantial proof of the crime charged.
Brown stands for the proposition that derivative evidence, found solely as a result of the confession, is admissible and will support the corpus delicti of the crime.
Another important aspect of Brown is the Court's rejection of the corpus delicti requirement that the specific crime charged be proved by independent evidence. In reviewing numerous prior cases, the Brown Court characterized the decisions as saying one thing but doing another. It held that every charged crime need not be proved by independent evidence in order to admit the confession as to those offenses. The basic policy behind the requirement of proof of the corpus delicti is one of caution in the acceptance of extrajudicial confessions without corroboration and nothing more.
The Court also rejected the notion that the state's proof must be "beyond a reasonable doubt" to establish corpus delicti, describing that language in prior decisions as "thoughtless dicta."
We hold that under any charge of felonious homicide the corpus delicti may be proved by showing by independent evidence that a felonious killing, not inconsistent with that alleged, was committed upon the victim identified and named in the indictment, and it is not necessary to prove specifically how the killing was accomplished for the purposes of the corpus delicti, although it is necessary to make such proof beyond a reasonable doubt for the conviction.
Although rejecting the reasonable doubt standard, the Supreme Court did not enunciate what quantum would be required. It found only that some proof less than "beyond a reasonable doubt" would satisfy the requirement. The Court's reliance upon the language in Griffiths suggested that any corroborative evidence would suffice. The state was not required to establish by independent evidence every specific allegation of the crime charged.
In 1966 the seminal case of Miranda v. Arizona was decided by the United States Supreme Court. That case, and the introduction of the exclusionary rule to support it, provided substantial remedies to insure the voluntariness of confessions and admissions. By the 1960s commentators had began to criticize the use of corpus delicti and acknowledged the confusion of judicial opinions concerning its application, interpretation and value.
Wigmore defined corpus delicti as having three components: (1) the occurrence of the specific kind of injury or loss; (2) somebody's criminality as the source of the loss; and (3) the accused's identity as the doer of this crime. Wigmore argued that only the first element should be required to establish the corpus delicti, as that would be a sufficient cautionary rule. Wigmore conceded that most of the states required the first two elements of corpus delicti. He wrote that criminality should not be required for a finding of corpus delicti.
The federal courts had already rejected the corpus delicti requirements in favor of a less stringent requirement of some corroboration of the statement or confession. The reasoning behind those decisions is summarized in Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 75 S. Ct. 158, 99 L.Ed. 101 (1954).
It is thus a sound principle that requires incriminatory statements of questionable reliability, made outside of the presence of a judge, to be corroborated by substantial, independent evidence before their admission into evidence against the accused. But the natural suspicion surrounding such statements does not justify a rule which would require, not only such corroboration as would lend credence to the statements of the accused, but also substantial evidence of every element of the offense with which he is charged. Such a rule would go beyond the requirement of crediting the confession and impose an impediment to effective law enforcement. We therefore prefer the less stringent and more reasonable requirement of corroboration of the statement itself, rather than proof of every element of the crime charged.
The trustworthiness doctrine has been summarized by one commentator as follows:
The trustworthiness version of corroboration, which emphasizes the inherent unreliability of some confessions, requires the prosecution to produce evidence corroborative of the confession's reliability. This evidence need not directly tend to prove the corpus delic; it is often said that it may in fact be wholly collateral to the crime itself The corroboration, however, directly relates to the trustworthiness of the important facts contained in the defendant's statement, whereas the corpus delicti version is more concerned with the elements of the offense.
Indiana declined to follow the federal courts and instead chose to remain with the "majority" of other states requiring that independent proof that an injury or loss was suffered and that someone's criminality was the source of that loss.
The Court further refined the quantum of proof required to meet the corpus delicti standard in Jones V. State. The Court held that it was not necessary that the state present a prima facie case as to each element of the crime charged nor was it necessary to prove each element beyond a reasonable doubt before a confession was admissible. The dissenting justices in Jones argued that the real issue in that case was the voluntariness of the confession and that the case should not have been decided on the corpus delicti doctrine.
The law in Indiana did not require independent proof of each element of the offense, the amount of proof was less than reasonable doubt and less than a prima facie showing, since each element of the offense was not required to satisfy the state's burden in proving the corpus delicti. Once properly admitted, a confession is direct evidence of guilt of the criminal activity admitted. Still no clear standard was established. Nonetheless, for more than Io years, Jones remained the case referred to by the Court as setting the quantum of evidence required to render a confession admissible.
Despite the seemingly fixed quantum of evidence to prove corpus delicti, the Indiana Supreme Court further refined the nature of "independent evidence" required to establish the corpus delicti of a crime. Recognizing that circumstantial evidence alone would support a finding of corpus delicti, the Court held that the circumstantial evidence need not exclude every reasonable hypothesis, but merely that the evidence must raise a reasonable inference that a crime had been committed."
Since 1980, Indiana courts applying the corpus delicti rule have noted that the doctrine may have outlived its usefulness in light of other safeguards against unreliable confessions. Other states, having come to that conclusion, have abandoned the corpus delicti doctrine in favor of the more workable trustworthiness requirement.
Has corpus delicti doctrine outlived its usefulness?
In order to evaluate whether the corpus delicti doctrine has outlived it usefulness, the rationale for the imposition of the rule must be analyzed. The primary function of the rule is to reduce the risk of convicting a defendant based on his confession for a crime that did not occur. Other justifications include the reduction of confessions produced by coercive tactics and the encouragement of thorough police investigations. These goals, while important, are arguably satisfied by modern procedural safeguards against coerced confessions and unlawful police conduct.
In recent years, the Indiana Supreme Court has consistently posed doubt as to whether the corpus delicti rule furthers the goals for which it was intended. Indeed, in Willoughby v. State, 552 N.E.2d 462, 466 (Ind. 1990), the Court concluded that strict adherence to the corpus delicti rule, in light of its declining utility, presents great difficulties in modem criminal law. The Court therein held that if multiple crimes are charged against a defendant, strict and separate application of the corpus delicti rule to each offense is not required once independent evidence of the principal crime is introduced.
In 1995 the Indiana Supreme Court again addressed the corpus delicti issue in the context of a murder case. In Johnson v. State, the Supreme Court reiterated that the corpus delicti rule's efficacy in meeting its objectives has been seriously questioned. Independent evidence is no longer required for each crime charged. Instead, only independent evidence of the principal charge is required because the confession has then been "substantially corroborated."
Recognizing the difficulty of applying the corpus delicti rule to the complexities of modem criminal practice and acknowledging that the rule fails to achieve any rational objective, it is difficult to ascertain why the Court has failed to heed the advice of Brown v. State.
... one wonders, when a rule is stated one way and applied in another, if it is not time to correctly state the rule as it is actually and sensibly applied to the facts in a case.
It could be argued that Indiana, at least as to secondary charges, has already adopted the "trustworthiness" doctrine. The corpus delicti rule, as it has evolved in Indiana is nearing a full circle. The rule was first articulated as requiring mere corroboration or a confession. It was then modified to require far greater proof and has since been diminished to a near corroboration or "trustworthiness" standard.
A straight forward adoption of the trustworthiness doctrine would eliminate much confusion and difficulty in application of this outdated doctrine.
Does Indian’s current corpus delicti rule bar murder prosecution where no body has been discovered?
No reported Indiana case on corpus delicti has specifically addressed this issue. However, applying the principles enunciated by the Court, no body is required to establish the crime of murder where there is evidence of a death and further evidence that would allow the inference that the death was the result of someone's criminality. These facts may be proved by circumstantial evidence alone.
Other jurisdictions with similar corpus delicti requirements have considered this issue. Those jurisdictions have accepted circumstantial evidence to prove both components of corpus delicti. death and criminality.
While every case must be reviewed on its own unique factual proof, there is no bar in Indiana to proving murder without a body. As a matter of public policy, a murderer who conceals the body of his victim should not be rewarded with immunity from prosecution and conviction. As one California court has written:
The fact that a murderer may successfully dispose of the body of the victim does not entitle him to acquittal. This is one form of success for which society has no reward.
Although the issue has no yet been addressed in Indiana, it is likely that the Supreme Court will uphold a finding of admissibility of a confession where the prosecution has sustained its burden of proving corpus delicti even though no body has been located. This would be consistent with the present state of corpus delicti law and public policy.
Conclusion
The Constitutional protection against coerced confessions, when combined with the requirements of Miranda and the imposition of the exclusionary rule, better satisfy the goals set for the corpus delicti doctrine. It is a wasteful duplication to require a showing of corpus delicti where the state has already carried its burden of proving that the confession was voluntary.
Indiana already has substantially receded from strict application of the doctrine, and a clear statement abandoning that standard may benefit the judiciary and the bar. The legitimate and important goals of the corpus delicti rule may be safeguarded by proper consideration of well-founded motions to suppress statements and exclusion of those confessions where the state has failed to prove their voluntariness. Adopting the trustworthiness standard for admissibility of confessions will further these goals, without impeding legitimate law enforcement efforts.