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Evidence - Corroboration Of Extrajudicial Confession - Quantum Of Independent Evidence Required To Sustain Conviction, Thomas A. Dieterich

Michigan Law Review

Sent to a hotel room at midnight to investigate reports of a contemplated robbery, the police found the defendant and another man, strangers in town, with loaded revolvers nearby. After defendant failed to account for the guns, the police confronted him with the robbery report, and he signed a confession. On appeal of his conviction for conspiracy to commit robbery, held, reversed, two justices dissenting in part. If evidence independent of the confession is such that reasonable minds could believe that the crime was in fact committed, the corpus delicti is sufficiently established to make the confession admissible. The …