State of Tennessee v. Courtney Bishop, 2014 Tenn. LEXIS 189

August 19, 2008, Maurice Taylor was murdered; two men, including Bishop, allegedly planned to rob him after obtaining drugs from McKay.
McKay confessed after police learned his girlfriend’s phone records tied him to the crime and identified Bishop; Bishop was arrested Aug. 22, 2008.
Bishop was taken into custody without a warrant and placed in a 48-hour hold for probable-cause detention and later interrogated while jailed.
Bishop moved to suppress the August 23, 2008 confession as a fruit of an illegal arrest; suppression motion was denied at suppression hearings.
Court of Criminal Appeals reversed, finding no independent corroboration of McKay’s statements and suppressing the confession; Tennessee Supreme Court granted permission to appeal.
The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed, holding there was probable cause to arrest Bishop and that, because Bishop repeated his extrajudicial confession at trial, it did not require corroboration under the modified trustworthiness standard, reinstating Bishop’s convictions.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether police had probable cause to arrest Bishop without a warrant	State: McKay’s identification linked Bishop to the crime via credible corroboration.	Bishop: No probable cause due to lack of corroboration for McKay’s statements.	Yes; probable cause existed due to corroborated independent facts that tied Bishop to the scene.
Whether the 48-hour hold violated Gerstein and tainted the confession	State: Gerstein requirement satisfied; detention lawful.	Bishop: 48-hour hold tainted the confession as an improper detentive purpose.	Waived issue; plain-error review applied and ultimately no relief; detention held lawful or not reversible on these facts.
What corroboration standard governs extrajudicial confessions in Tennessee	State: adopt trustworthiness standard; corroboration not required for all cases.	Bishop: preserve traditional corpus delicti rule.	Adopted modified trustworthiness standard; corroboration required to bolster trustworthiness plus evidence of loss/injury where applicable.
Does the corpus delicti/corroboration rule apply to this case given Bishop testified at trial	State: confession corroborated and supported conviction; no need for extrajudicial corroboration if testified.	Bishop: corroboration still required for extrajudicial confession.	Because Bishop testified under oath, corroboration was not required for the corroboration of his extrajudicial confession; convictions upheld.

State v. Echols, 382 S.W.3d 266 (Tenn. 2012) (probable cause and suppression standards; de novo review of law to facts; aggregate knowledge rule)
State v. Jacumin, 778 S.W.2d 430 (Tenn. 1989) ( Aguilar-Spinelli framework for informant reliability; applied to corroboration)
Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 81 (U.S. 1954) (trustworthiness corroboration standard for non-corpus-delicti confessions)
Smith v. United States, 348 U.S. 147 (U.S. 1954) (trustworthiness/corroboration approach for crimes lacking tangible corpus delicti)
United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573 (U.S. 1971) (accomplice statements and credibility considerations in corroboration)
State v. Huddleston, 924 S.W.2d 666 (Tenn. 1996) (Gerstein and timing of pretrial determinations; suppression implications)
State v. Shepherd, 902 S.W.2d 895 (Tenn. 1995) (corpus delicti in homicide; independence of corpus delicti evidence)
State v. Banks, 271 S.W.3d 90 (Tenn. 2008) (corroboration standards; corpus delicti discussions)
State v. Housler, 193 S.W.3d 476 (Tenn. 2006) (trustworthiness framework antecedent to this decision)
State v. Bledsoe, 226 S.W.3d 349 (Tenn. 2007) (plain-error and preserved-issue review framework)
State v. McLaughlin (County of Riverside), 500 U.S. 44 (U.S. 1991) (McLaughlin timing rule for Gerstein hearings (cited for context))