40 N.Y.2d 327 | NY | 1976
Lead Opinion
Defendant was indicted for the crimes of common-law murder, felony murder, two counts of attempted robbery, attempted grand larceny and possession of a weapon as a felony. He had admitted and confessed to a police officer that during the course of attempting to rob a man sleeping in an automobile, a struggle ensued, and he stabbed and killed a man.
The critical issue presented is whether, in a felony murder prosecution based upon a full confession of guilt, the confession corroboration statute (CPL 60.50) requires the People to prove the commission of the predicate felony by evidence independent of that contained in the confession. Determination of this issue turns on the meaning ascribed to the rule set forth in CPL 60.50, which provides that:
"A person may not be convicted of any offense solely upon evidence of a confession or admission made by him without additional proof that the offense charged has been committed.”
While the wording of CPL 60.50 differs slightly from that of its 1881 predecessor (Code Crim Pro, § 395), the Legislature manifested no intention of changing the meaning or requirements of the confession corroboration rule when it enacted the CPL in 1971 (see Denzer, Practice Commentary, McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 11 A, CPL 60.50, p 331).
Following a pretrial confession suppression hearing, defendant’s statement, made to Mount Vernon Police Detective Frank Tetro, was held to have been voluntarily made and admissible in evidence. At trial, Detective Tetro testified that after administering the standard preinterrogation admonitions (see Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436), defendant described what had occurred at 6:00 a.m. on August 5, 1972 on West
Defendant took the stand in his own defense and denied the statements attributed to him by Officer Tetro. He claimed that the victim was an illicit drug supplier known as "Tee” to whom he, an addict and small-time pusher, owed money. He asserted that, in the course of a disagreement and resultant struggle over the quality of drugs supplied to him and the amount of money he owed therefor, he stabbed "Tee” in self-defense and then fled from the scene.
After the prosecution had rested, the Trial Judge granted a defense motion to dismiss the attempted robbery and larceny counts on the ground that the prosecution had not corrobo
The effect of the confession corroboration statute is to require proof of the corpus delicti (People v Reade, 13 NY2d 42, 45), a requirement universally followed by other States (see Ann., 45 ALR2d 1316). Generally, proof of the corpus delicti requires a showing: (1) that a loss has occurred (i.e., in a homicide, a deceased person) and (2) that the loss resulted from somebody’s criminality (People v Bennett, 49 NY 137, 143; 7 Wigmore, Evidence [3d ed], § 2072).
Consonant with this rationale, the Legislature codified the common-law rule (see People v Bennett, 49 NY 137, 143, supra) and enacted what became CPL 60.50 which requires additional proof of the crime to obviate the "danger that a crime may be confessed when no such crime in any degree has been committed by any one” (People v Lytton, 257 NY 310, 314; see People v Daniels, 37 NY2d 624, 629). The additional proof need not be direct evidence linking the defendant to the crime (People v Brasch, 193 NY 46, 59). It sufficies to show corroborating circumstances "which, when considered in connection with the confession are sufficient to establish the defendant’s guilt in the minds of the jury beyond a reasonable doubt” (People v Conroy, 287 NY 201, 202). Moreover, it is not necessary that the proof include "every reasonable hypothesis save that of guilt” (People v Cuozzo, 292 NY 85, 92). As we wrote in People v Jaehne (103 NY 182, 199-200) and repeated in People v Reade (13 NY2d 42, supra): "when, in addition to the confession, there is proof of circumstances which, although they may have an innocent construction, are nevertheless calculated to suggest the commission of crime, and for the explanation of which the confession furnishes the key, the case cannot be taken from the jury”. Thus, we have said that "presence at the scene, proof of motive, evidence of flight and other conduct indicating a consciousness of guilt may * * * be held to constitute the essential additional proof’ (Reade, supra, at p 46). Indeed, "the statute is satisfied by the production of some proof, of whatever weight, that a crime was committed by someone” (People v Daniels, 37 NY2d 624, 629, supra).
We hold that the proof adduced here was sufficient and adequate to satisfy the requirements of CPL 60.50. The prosecution established the corpus delicti aliunde the confession by showing the fact of death and that the cause thereof was a
We reject, as this court has done on at least four other occasions (People v Louis, 1 NY2d 137; People v Gold, 295 NY 772; People v Lytton, 257 NY 310, supra; People v Joyce, 233 NY 61), the argument that evidence of the underlying felony must be corroborated in a felony murder prosecution. In Lytton, Chief Judge Cardozo held that the evidence corroborating the identification of the defendant as the person who fired the fatal shots along with the additional evidence showing "the body, bearing tokens of a fatal wound”, was "sufficient to confirm confession of a homicide” (p 314); and he also made clear that the confession corroboration rule does not require that the particular degree of the homicide be confirmed. Thus, the argument that a different measure of corroboration was necessary in a felony murder case than in one involving common-law murder was found lacking. Likewise, in People v Louis (1 NY2d 137, 140-141, supra) the court
Nor is the New York rule unique. In People v Cantrell (8 Cal 3d 672) the California Supreme Court unanimously rejected the claim that the People need establish the corpus delicti of the underlying felony to introduce a defendant’s extrajudical statements. Held sufficient there were statements by the defendant that he had been sexually molesting the victim immediately before he strangled him, thereby establishing the requisite felony upon which the felony murder charge was based.
Defendant contends nevertheless that the dismissal of the underlying felony counts perforce requires dismissal of the felony murder charge. However, we have only recently rejected that very argument (People v Dennis, 33 NY2d 996, affg 40 AD2d 959). Moreover, any claim of double jeopardy or collateral estoppel is untenable upon the facts of this case for it is manifest that the dismissal of the predicate felonies was solely the result of the lack of corroborating evidence thereof, and not any failure to prove the crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. Hence, the factual question whether defendant committed the acts charged was left open for the jury, their having conclusively decided the issue in favor of the prosecution.
We find no merit in the additional argument that the change in form of indictments (see CPL 200.50) effected by the enactment of the CPL in 1971 was in any way intended to alter or strengthen CPL 60.50. As noted at the outset, the drafters of CPL 60.50 intended no change in its scope and retained "the corroboration rule enunciated in Criminal Code § 395” (Denzer, Practice Commentary, McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 11B, CPL 60.50, p 331). No legislative history exists to support a contrary conclusion.
The confession corroboration rule does not require that each element of the crime of felony murder be established by evidence apart from the confession. Indeed, Professor Wig-more called several aberrant holdings requiring such additional proof "too absurd to be argued with” (7 Wigmore, Evidence [3d ed], § 2072, subd [3]). As has been made plain, "the confession alone is enough to implicate the defendant;
As to the felony murder conviction, I would further add that some of us hold that even if the rule posited by the dissenters were to be applied in this case, an affirmance would nonetheless be required. There was sufficient evidence of the predicate felony to satisfy the meager requirements of CPL 60.50, as indicated by the signs of a struggle, the clothing of the victim being in a state of disarray and, further, that his wallet, later recovered and returned to the family of the victim, was not found at the scene (see People v Daniels, 37 NY2d 624, supra; People v Jennings, 33 NY2d 880, affg 40 AD2d 357, 362, supra).
A defense request that, on the common-law murder count, the Trial Judge charge the jury as to manslaughter, second degree, was denied. Upon this record, this was error (People v Tai, 39 NY2d 894).
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be modified to the extent of reversing defendant’s conviction of manslaughter, first degree, and a new trial granted thereon; and, except as so modified, the order should be affirmed.
. Section 395 of the Code of Criminal Procedure reads:
“A confession of a defendant, whether in the course of judicial proceedings or to a private person, can be given in evidence against him, unless made under the influence of fear produced by threats, or unless made upon a stipulation of the district attorney, that he shall not be prosecuted therefor; but is not sufficient to warrant his conviction, without additional proof that the crime charged has been committed.”
. At one time some States also required proof of the identity of the wrongdoer (see 7 Wigmore, Evidence [3d ed], § 2072, subd [3]). However, that requirement no longer appears to be the law anywhere (see Ann., 45 ALR2d 1316; 3 Wharton’s Criminal Evidence [13th ed], § 691).
. In the Boorn case, the two defendant brothers had confessed, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged when the "victim” appeared alive.
. See, e.g., Gardner v People (106 Ill 76), where an immigrant unable to understand English confessed to a murder that may actually have been noncriminal homicide; and State v Johnson (95 Utah 572) where the defendant confessed to smothering a baby as it was born when in fact the baby may have been stillborn.
. The additional requirement of proving intent without reference to the confession, propounded by the dissenters, is a derelict in the law. It is the universal rule that apart from the confession some evidence, but not evidence proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, is required (Ann., 45 ALR2d 1316, 1331-1333, and Supps, citing decisions in at least 27 States and the United States Supreme Court).
. We would emphasize, contrary to suggestions in the dissenting opinion, that the jury verdict is rational and readily explainable. While the jury obviously concluded by its acquittal on the common-law murder charge that defendant did not cause the death of the victim with the intention of so doing, they nevertheless could properly have found, as they did, consistent with the evidence, that defendant feloniously possessed a weapon and, in the course of attempting to commit robbery, intentionally caused serious physical harm to the victim which caused his death, thereby committing the crimes of felonious possession of a weapon, manslaughter, first degree, and felony murder. It is significant that the intent to cause the death of another person is an element of common-law murder (then Penal Law, § 125.25, subd 1, which, in pertinent part, read: "A person is guilty of murder when: 1. With intent to cause the death of another person, he causes the death of such person”); and obviously is not an element of felony murder (then Penal Law, § 125.25, subd 3, which, in pertinent part, read: "A person is guilty of murder when: 3. * * * he commits or attempts to commit robbery * * * and, in the course of and in furtherance of such crime * * * he * * * causes the death of a person”).
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). Defendant Melvin Murray was convicted, after a jury trial, of felony murder, manslaughter in the first degree and the felonious possession of a weapon. The conviction was predicated solely upon defendant’s admissions to the police that he fatally stabbed Donald Carney when Carney resisted defendant’s attempt to rob him. The Appellate Division unanimously affirmed the judgment of conviction in a brief entry and a Judge of this court granted defendant leave for further appeal.
In the early morning hours of August 5, 1972, two Mount Vernon police officers assigned to the Emergency Command Unit were on a routine patrol in the vicinity of Seventh Avenue and Third Street. A passing motorist hailed the patrol car and, through an open window, shouted that there was a man lying in the street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The officers turned the corner and found a man lying face down in a pool of blood in front of 59 West Third Street, a few feet away from an unoccupied automobile. The police found part of a broken denture, some particles of food and food packaging, both directly underneath the vehicle as well as on the driver’s seat. There was a considerable amount of blood on both the interior and exterior of the car. The injured man, still bleeding from a chest wound, was taken to the emergency room of Mount Vernon Hospital where, shortly after arrival, he died. A brief search of the body did not produce a wallet or other identification. Each of the responding officers reported that they did not find a wallet on the deceased’s person. At some point, however, the wallet must have been recovered since the widow testified that the police later returned her husband’s wallet, with identification papers and some currency still inside. The police did find an out-of-State vehicle title certificate, listing the owner as Donald Carney, in the glove compartment of the automobile. Mrs. Carney, a resident of New Rochelle, was summoned to identify the body.
The police commenced their investigation by taking several
Later that evening, at approximately 6:15 p.m., the defendant and a woman entered the office of the Detective Division of the Police Department. The defendant asked the desk officer whether there was a warrant out for his arrest. After a check of the records, the officer asked the defendant "if that was the real reason he had come in.” The defendant replied negatively, "it was about the thing on Third Street”. The defendant was brought into an interview room and was given the standard preinterrogation warnings. The defendant then stated "that he had gotten into a fight and that he had stabbed him.” The defendant was immediately booked and the detective assigned to the case, Detective Tetro, was summoned back to headquarters. Detective Tetro repeated the standard preinterrogation warnings and obtained a more complete statement. The defendant told Tetro that as he was walking past 57 West Third Street, he noticed a man slumped over the steering wheel of a car. After walking to the corner, defendant decided to "take the man off’ and returned to the car. The passenger-side door would not open and knocks on the window failed to arouse the driver. He walked over to the driver’s side, opened the door, and woke the driver up. After defendant demanded money, the driver turned in his seat and kicked the defendant, knocking him to the ground. After an exchange of punches, defendant took a knife from his pocket and stabbed the driver. The defendant fled the scene, dropping the knife in the backyard of the building at 57 West Third Street. Defend
The defendant was indicted for murder, felony murder, two counts of attempted robbery in the first degree, attempted grand larceny in the third degree, and felonious possession of a weapon. At the close of the People’s case, the court granted motions to dismiss both attempted robbery counts and the attempted grand larceny count. At trial the People relied upon the admissions of the defendant and medical testimony indicated that Carney had died of a stab wound in the chest. Defendant testified that he owed Carney, known to him as "Tee”, a sum of money and, after leaving a party, he met Carney by coincidence in front of 70 West Third Street. After defendant told Carney that he would have to wait for his money, Carney struck the defendant. The defendant was getting the better of the ensuing fight and Carney reached into a pocket and pulled out a knife. The defendant grabbed Carney’s arm and the men struggled for the knife. After a while, Carney ceased struggling, the defendant backed away, and the knife fell into the street. When Carney did not respond to a question, defendant became scared and ran away.
It is plain from a review of the evidence that the People’s case rested entirely upon the defendant’s admissions, coupled with the corpus delicti, a body bearing the tokens of a criminal assault. In our view, there was no corroboration at all of the attempted robbery confessed and that the robbery-related charges were properly dismissed. The reliance of four members of the court on the indicia of a physical altercation and the absence of a wallet on deceased’s body for corroboration is misplaced. Defendant concedes that there was an altercation, only he contends, as brought out during the trial, that the brawl was induced by deceased and that his response was prompted by a legitimate need for self-defense. Thus, the physical signs of a struggle are as "corroborative” of defendant’s trial testimony as they might be of his confession and, thus, lack any probative value at all. The absence of a billfold is an obvious makeweight. The body of the deceased remained in the street for a considerable period of time before it was
Whether the evidence that was submitted to the jury, i.e., defendant’s admission coupled with the finding of the body, suffices to support the felony murder conviction, though the predicate felony could not be proved, hinges on the interplay of two separate legal doctrines: the concept of felony murder and the requirement that admissions be corroborated. A person is guilty of murder in the second degree
At the same time, the law continues to provide that no person may be convicted by his own statement alone. Before a conviction may be had, a confession or admission must be corroborated by "additional proof that the offense charged has been committed.” (GPL 60.50.) This requirement, the weakest of all corroboration requirements, is designed to guard against the possibility that a defendant might be convicted and jailed for a crime that never occurred. Thus, the prosecution must adduce some proof, of whatever weight, that a crime was committed by someone. (See, e.g., People v Daniels, 37 NY2d 624, 629; People v Reade, 13 NY2d 42, 45; People v Cuozzo, 292 NY 85, 92.)
In People v Lytton (257 NY 310), this court first directly
In any event, the CPL, effective September 1, 1971, did away with the old common-law form of murder indictment (see Denzer, Practice Commentary, McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 11 A, CPL art 200, p 195) and, thus, removed the underpinnings of the Lytton "rule”. In Lytton, the court relied
It is right that the prosecution be required to allege, in the felony murder count, the commission of a predicate felony. As previously noted, it is the felony that lends the basis for the felony murder conviction. Without the felony, the prosecution must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant possessed the requisite homicidal intent. In this case, there was absolutely no corroborating proof of the confessed attempted robbery. Yet the attempted robbery is relied upon to make this killing punishable as murder. It is of special significance that the jury, under another count of the indictment, refused to find the defendant guilty of common-law murder, finding, instead, that the defendant was guilty of manslaughter in the first degree. In other words, the jury found that although the defendant may have intended to commit serious physical injury to the deceased (Penal Law, § 125.20, subd l),
We recognize the well-established rule that a confession of homicide is amply corroborated by the finding of a body bearing the indicia of a criminal assault. At the same time, there is the more fundamental rule that each element of the crime must be established by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. (CPL 70.20.) Thus, the confession in these cases must supply both the intent and the act. If the defendant admits an intentional killing, the finding of the corpus delicti amply verifies that admission. On the other hand, if the defendant informs the police of a justifiable homicide, then the requisite intent must come from outside the confession. Similarly, in felony murder, where the intent flows from the underlying felony, there must be corroborating evidence of the felony. To state that the finding of the body corroborates the fact of a death in the course of a felony is to pile an inference on top of an inference. Although the People may have proved, with the aid of the confession, a homicide, they have not proved a felony murder. Since 1971, proof of a generic homicide has been insufficient. To obtain a murder conviction based on an admission, the admission must supply all the elements of the crime of murder, including intent, and the People must produce corroborating evidence. But here, they did not corroborate a felony murder and, according to the jury, did not prove an intentional killing.
We do not hold that in each case of felony murder the prosecution must charge and convict for the underlying felony. Rather, we hold simply that there must be, in the record, legally sufficient evidence to corroborate defendant’s admission that he participated in a felony during the course of which a death ensued. In this case, there is no corroboration and the conviction is not supported by legally sufficient evidence.
Three of our colleagues, with all due respect, miss the point. Although there may have been corroborating evidence of homicide, there has been no corroborating evidence of the felony underlying this felony murder conviction. There is no crime of homicide; there is the general category of homicide, with crimes defined in accordance with the intent of the
Although corroboration need not extend to every element of the crime, each element must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Where there is no proof of an intent to kill and no corroboration or an admission that a predicate felony occurred, the element of mens rea has not been established to the extent required by law. Here, there has been no proof of intent and, likewise, no legally sufficient proof of the predicate felony of attempted robbery. Hence, there has been no sufficient proof of defendant’s guilt of intentional murder, or of felony murder. It is fundamentally unfair, if not shocking to a concerned conscience, that, as our three colleagues maintain, an unproved felony may be employed to artifically raise the defendant’s culpable mental state. Surely, it is wrong to read the felony out of felony murder. We would free the defendant of the charge of felony murder because there has been insufficient proof, as a matter of law, of that crime. It is too late in the day to argue that a confession by itself is sufficient proof of guilt. It is even more obvious that a man should not be held for a crime for which his guilt has not been established in a court of law. We would hold that a man-slaughterer cannot be punished as a murderer because of the unsupported use of a legal fiction.
Had there been no error in the court’s charge with respect to manslaughter, second degree, we would have no difficulty in modifying the Appellate Division order appropriately. However, all the members of the court agree that the trial court erred in refusing to charge manslaughter in the second degree as a lesser-included offense. A defendant is entitled to a charge down to a lesser-included offense if, upon any view of the facts, a jury might properly find that the defendant committed the lesser crime and not the greater. (CPL 300.50; People v Asan, 22 NY2d 526.) "Under the circumstances of this case, the jury could reasonably have believed defendant’s claim that he was not the initial aggressor but only attempted to repel the victim’s attack upon him, and at the same time accept the evidence that defendant, at some point during the the struggle with the victim, inflicted fatal wounds on [him]. Thus, the jury might have found that defendant acted recklessly and therefore committed acts constituting manslaughter in the second degree (Penal Law, 125.15)”. (People v Tai, 39
We conclude, therefore, that the order of the Appellate Division should be reversed; the felony murder count in the indictment should be dismissed (CPL 470.40, subd 1; 470.20, subd 2); and a new trial should be ordered on the remaining counts of the indictment.
Judges Jones and Cooke concur with Judge Gabrielli; Judge Wachtler concurs in a separate opinion; Judge Jasen dissents and votes to reverse in another separate opinion in which Chief Judge Breitel and Judge Fuchsberg concur.
Order modified and case remitted to Westchester County Court for a new trial in accordance with the opinion herein and, as so modified, affirmed.
. At the time of this occurrence, the Penal Law contained the single degreeless crime of murder. When the Penal Law was revised in 1974 to include the capital offense of murdering a police officer (see Penal Law, § 125.27), the former murder statute was retitled, without a change in substance, murder in the second degree. (L 1974, ch 367, § 4.)
. Judge Crane took the view that the "form of the indictment cannot obscure the reality.” He noted that the "important proof in a felony murder is the felony, because this makes the act of killing murder * * * even though the defendant did not intend to kill.” In his opinion, he recognized that, in felony murder, there can be no conviction for a lesser-included offense since there is no possible shading of felonious intent as there is with respect to homicidal intent. (People v Lytton, 257 NY 310, 317 [Crane, J., concurring]; see, also, People v Joyce, 233 NY 61, 73-75 [Crane, J., concurring].)
. This finding is, by itself, suspect because of the refusal of the court to charge down to manslaughter in the second degree, an issue discussed more fully infra.
Concurrence Opinion
(concurring). I concur in the modification but solely on the ground that there was sufficient corroboration of the underlying felony.