Thornburgh v. State

LUMPKIN, Vice Presiding Judge,

dissents:

I must respectfully dissent to the Court’s determination that insufficient evidence was presented to sustain the verdict of the jury.

We have previously sustained a conviction for murder in the first degree where the body of the victim was never found. See Rawlings v. State, 740 P.2d 153 (Okl.Cr.1987). The issue of corpus delicti was addressed in the context of that case and the Court held:

The appellant correctly asserts that proof of a corpus delicti must be beyond a reasonable doubt. 21 O.S.1981, § 693. Corpus delicti means the actual commission of a particular crime by someone. Cooper v. State, 671 P.2d 1168 (Okl.Cr.1983). The State must prove the corpus delicti beyond a reasonable doubt by evidence other than a confession. Parks v. State, 651 P.2d 686 (Okl.Cr.1982). It is not necessary that the corpus delicti *190 should be established by direct and positive proof. It may be proved as well by circumstantial evidence, if on all the evidence, the jury is satisfied of the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Brown v. State, 9 Okl.Cr. 382 , 132 P. 359 (1913).

In a prosecution for homicide, the corpus delicti consists of two fundamental and necessary facts: first, the death; second, the criminal agency of another as the cause for that death. State v. Edmondson, 536 P.2d 386 (Okl.Cr.1975). As applied to this ease, it was necessary to show, first, that Sally Rawlings died from the effects of a wound, and second, that the wound was unlawfully inflicted by the defendant.

When the sufficiency of the evidence presented at trial is challenged on appeal, as it is here, the proper test is whether after reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of facts could have found the essential elements of the crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt. Spuehler v. State, 709 P.2d 202 (Okl.Cr.1985). 740 P.2d at 160 .

In Rawlings the State was able to prove the death of the victim, absent a body, based on circumstantial evidence. The Court properly applied the evidentiary test set forth in Spuehler and determined the essential elements of the offense could have been found by any rational trier of facts. The Court’s treatment of the corpus delicti issue in this case in effect treats the production of the victim’s body in a detrimental manner, rather than the positive result it should have. The production of the body establishes the first fact enunciated in State v. Edmondson, the death. In Rawlings the death was never proved by direct evidence, only circumstantially. In this case the death was proved by direct evidence and that independent evidence is sufficient to prove the corpus delicti when coupled with the corroborated statements made by Appellant to third parties prior to the discovery of the body and the confessions given to law enforcement officers. The location of the body where the Appellant said it would be prior to its discovery and the manner in which the body was buried is sufficient independent evidence to corroborate the statements and confession and support a conviction pursuant to the Spuehler test. If the evidence was sufficient to sustain a conviction without a body in Rawlings , the evidence in this case is sufficient to sustain a conviction because the body has been produced. I therefore dissent to the Court’s determination that the corpus delicti has not been proven.