Limbird v. State
Limbird v. State
Opinion of the Court
This is an appeal by Lamons Limbird, plaintiff in error, defendant below, from a conviction, judgment and sentence against him had in the District Court of Muskogee County, Oklahoma, on a charge of second degree burglary. The defendant was sentenced thereon to a term of two years in the state penitentiary. From that judgment and sentence, this appeal has been perfected.
The information charged the defendant with feloniously breaking and entering by forcing a widow of a certain building oc
None of this evidence is sufficient to establish the corpus delicti, or the commission of a crime, independent of the confession. It has repeatedly been held by this and other courts, both Federal and state, under both common law and statute, that an extra-judicial confession alone does not warrant a conviction unless it is corroborated by independent evidence of the actual commission of the crime, which constitutes the corpus delicti. This may be established either by circumstantial or positive evidence, but is an essential attribute that must be established before the confession becomes admissible to connect the defendant with the crime. For application of this rule see Bonicelli v. State, Okl.Cr., 339 P.2d 1063; Basham v. State, Okl.Cr., 340 P.2d 461; both of which call attention to Love v. State, Okl.Cr., 319 P.2d 317, and the possibility of a different theory of prosecution; 22 C.J..S. Criminal Law § 830; Gorum v. State, 60 Okl.Cr. 248, 63 P.2d 765; Young v. State, 56 Okl.Cr. 375, 40 P.2d 686; Bridwell v. State, 52 Okl.Cr. 353, 5 P.2d 403; Isaacs v. United States, 159 U.S. 487, 16 S.Ct. 51, 40 L.Ed. 229; 20 Am.Jur. 423; Mackey v. State, 30 Okl.Cr. 31, 234 P. 782; Phillips v. State, 29 Ga. 105; State of Kansas v. Cardwell, 90 Kan. 606, 135 P. 597, L.R.A.1916B, 745; Brown v. State, 81 Okl.Cr. 303, 164 P.2d 249, 166 P.2d 1021; all holding that proof of corpus delicti must be made independent of a confession before a conviction based thereon can be sustained. This is the decisive point of this appeal. The cause is accordingly reversed and remanded for a new trial
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.