Commonwealth v. Boykin

Dissenting Opinion by

Mr. Justice Nix :

I respectfully dissent.

One of the contentions raised by the appellant was that the confession was improperly admitted because the Commonwealth failed to prove the corpus delicti. In reaching its conclusion today the majority has, in my view, misapplied formerly, well established principles of criminal law. From the earliest cases, this Commonwealth, striving to avoid convictions based on confessions where no crime exists, adopted a rule of caution which holds that the corpus delicti must be proven independent of a confession before a conviction can be allowed to stand. Grant v. Commonwealth, 71 Pa. 495 (1872); Johnson v. Commonwealth, 115 Pa. 369 , 9 A. 78 (1886).

In Commonwealth v. Puglise, 276 Pa. 235, 238 , 120 A. 401 (1923), this court stated: “Before a conviction can be had, it must always appear, beyond a reasonable doubt, that death was caused as a result of some felonious act, and if this is shown, then the agency of the defendant in committing the crime may be made evident by his voluntary declarations. We do not mean to say that the prosecution must necessarily call witnesses to negative the idea of suicide, but if, under the circumstances developed by the evidence produced, a doubt as to the cause of death is disclosed, then the court should instruct the jury to consider this question, disregarding any confession admitting guilt: Gray v. Com., 101 Pa. 380 . ‘The jury should first pass upon the sufficiency of the evidence of the corpus delicti, and if it satisfies them beyond a reasonable doubt that the crime has been committed, then they are at liberty to give the confession such weight as it is entitled to, *36 taking into view the circumstances surrounding it and the extent to which it has been corroborated. All the law requires is that the corpus delicti shall be proved as any other fact, that is, beyond a reasonable doubt, and that doubt is for the jury.’” (Citation omitted.) The court elaborated upon this rule in Commonwealth v. Gardner, 282 Pa. 458, 463, 128 A. 87 (1925) : “To avoid the injustice of a conviction where no crime exists, the law has adopted a rule of caution which holds that the corpus delicti must be proven before a conviction can stand. This is emphasized where the state’s case depends on a confession by defendant. The fact that a crime has been committed by someone must be shown before the confession will be received: Gray v. Com., 101 Pa. 380 ; Com. v. Puglise, 276 Pa. 235 . The person for whose death a prosecution is instituted may be alive, so evidence that he or she is in fact dead is imperative. As death may have resulted from a cause other than a felonious act, there must be evidence that it occurred under circumstances which point to the commission of a crime. In this manner the corpus delicti is shown. In some states the term corpus delicti includes only the first of the above elements, namely, an injury or loss. But in this and most of the states it covers in addition criminal agency causing the injury or loss.” (Citations omitted.)

It is therefore clear that the rule as initially formulated was two-pronged. First, the Commonwealth had no affirmative obligation to exclude the possibility of accident or suicide in establishing the corpus delicti. Secondly, the Commonwealth had an affirmative duty to produce evidence that the death resulted from a criminal agency. These aspects of the rule are not mutually exclusive. The reason for the rule is set forth in Puglise , quoting from Commonwealth v. Gray, 71 Pa. at 386 : “While it is familiar law that a confession is not evidence in the absence of proof of the corpus *37 delicti, yet I am not aware of any case which, holds that the corpus delicti must first be proved beyond the possibility of doubt. It is a fact to be proved like any other fact in the cause, and be found by the jury upon competent evidence. The true rule in such cases is believed to be this: When the Commonwealth has given sufficient evidence of the corpus delicti to entitle the case to go to the jury, it is competent to show a confession made by the prisoner connecting him with the crime.” 276 Pa. at 238-239 . The recognition that the Commonwealth was not required to exclude the possibility of suicide or accident was simply another means of stating that proof of criminal agency need not be established beyond a possibility of a doubt.

Concluding that the Commonwealth has no obligation to affirmatively exclude the possibility of accident is not, however, synonymous with a holding that the Commonwealth has no responsibility of establishing affirmatively that the death was caused by a criminal agency. Many deaths are consistent with felonious homicide; however, this fact alone cannot justify a finding that the Commonwealth has necessarily met its burden to prove a criminal agency.

The majority asserts that there is authority for its present view in the cases of Commonwealth v. Gockley, 411 Pa. 437 , 192 A. 2d 693 (1963); Commonwealth v. Kravitz, 400 Pa. 198 , 161 A. 2d 861 (1960); Commonwealth v. Kostan, 349 Pa. 560 , 37 A. 2d 606 (1944). I believe that these cases do not provide support for the majority’s position. Admittedly, the three decisions referred to the portion of the rule indicating that the Commonwealth had no duty to exclude accident or suicide; however, I do not feel that there is anything in these decisions that repudiates the remainder of the rule that requires the Commonwealth to establish affirmatively the criminal agency. In Kostan and Ooelcley, it was contended that the Commonwealth had *38 failed to establish a corpus sufficient to justify the admission of a confession or admission because it had failed to eliminate the possibility of an accident. The court in these decisions properly referred to the portion of the rule that eliminated the necessity of this requirement. It is, however, significant to note that in each of these decisions there was more than sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude that death had in fact resulted from a criminal agency. In G-ockley the decedent’s body was found buried on the defendant’s premises and his body contained shotgun discs, wadding and pellets. In Kostan , there was direct testimony that a co-defendant had struck the deceased over the left side of the head with a club the size of a policeman’s mace knocking the decedent to the ground. The defendant in that case was then observed striking the deceased with a beer bottle over the right side of the head causing the bottle to break. The medical testimony established that the decedent died of shock and intracranial hemorrhage following a fracture of the skull.

In Kramts the objection was that the proof of corpus delicti must include evidence of the identity of the guilty party. This obviously is not the rule and was properly rejected. Here also, there was no question of the sufficiency of evidence offered to allow a jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the deceased had died from a criminal agency. Equally significant is that none of the defendants in the cases relied upon by the majority raised the question as to the sufficiency of the evidence to prove criminal agency. It is my belief, after an exhaustive review of the cases in this jurisdiction on the subject, that there is absolutely no precedent for the majority’s present decision to reduce the burden of proof necessary for the Commonwealth to establish a death resulting from a criminal agency.

*39 In the case at bar there was as a matter of law insufficient evidence (independent of the confession) to establish a criminal agency beyond a reasonable doubt and the court was duty bound to remove the matter from the jury’s consideration. Considering the evidence in this case, the majority admits in footnote 2 that the testimony of the medical examiner to the effect that the baby died from “unnatural means” was based on his reading of the police report which indicated that the defendant had admitted to deliberately suffocating the baby. The only competent medical evidence, therefore, is completely neutral on the issue of the presence of criminal agency. Excluding information derived from the confession, the only evidence tending to show criminal agency is the fact that the appellant had custody of the baby at the time of the death, and that the appellant was observed Avearing a blouse with what appeared to be a spot of dried blood. 1

In vieAV of the new constitutional procedural safeguards that we have developed in recent years to assure the veracity of statements and to prevent coercion, there may be some justification for relaxing the former requirements pertaining to the proof of corpus delicti. If this was in fact the basis for the majority’s present view it should have been so noted rather than deliberately distorting a time honored rule of our law.

Not only did the Commonwealth fail to introduce evidence of a chemical analysis to establish that this spot was in fact dried human blood, the record is barren of any evidence (other than the confession) connecting the spot to the baby’s death.