Case Name: PEOPLE v. WILLIAMS
Court: Michigan Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1985-09-04
Citations: 422 Mich. 381
Docket Number: Docket No. 72519
Parties: PEOPLE v WILLIAMS
Judges: Williams, C.J., and Brickley, Boyle, and Riley, JJ., concurred with Ryan, j.
Reporter: Michigan Reports
Volume: 422
Pages: 381–406

Head Matter:
PEOPLE v WILLIAMS
Docket No. 72519.
Argued January 10, 1985
(Calendar No. 7). —
Decided September 4, 1985.
John L. Williams, Jr., was convicted by a jury in the Bay Circuit Court, John X. Theiler, J., of first-degree murder. The Court of Appeals, R. M. Maher, P.J., and R. B. Burns and Marutiak, JJ., vacated the defendant’s conviction of first-degree murder in an opinion per curiam and remanded the case for entry of a conviction of second-degree murder and resentencing on the ground that the defendant’s confession should not have been used to establish premeditation and deliberation (Docket No. 53160). The people appeal and the defendant cross-appeals.
In an opinion by Justice Ryan, joined by Chief Justice Williams and Justices Brickley, Boyle, and Riley, the Supreme Court held:
In a prosecution of first-degree premeditated murder, the elements of premeditation and deliberation need not be shown independent of a defendant’s confession to sustain a conviction of first-degree premeditated murder where it is shown, independent of the defendant’s confession, that common-law or statutory second-degree murder was committed by the defendant.
1. Corpus delicti, as used in homicide cases, refers not to the body of the deceased, but to the body of the wrong — the loss sustained. In criminal homicide prosecutions, the delicti or essence of the wrong is the wrongful taking of a human life by a criminal agency. It is an inaccurate and unwarranted reading of the history and purpose of the corpus delicti rule to suggest the need for independent proof of each and every element of the particular grade and kind of common-law or statutory criminal homicide charged as a condition of admissibility of a defendant’s confession.
2. Where, as in this case, it is shown without reference to the defendant’s confession that a common-law or statutory second-degree murder was committed by the defendant, the risk of convicting the defendant of a killing when none occurred, is met and obviated. No injustice results where a defendant’s confession that the independently proved second-degree murder was, in addition, deliberate and premeditated is admitted and thereby results in a conviction of the statutorily heightened crime of first-degree murder.
References for Points in Headnotes
[1-6] Am Jur 2d, Evidence § 1134 et seq.
Am Jur 2d, Homicide § 245 et seq.
Modem status of the rules requiring malice "aforethought,” "deliberation,” or "premeditation,” as elements of murder in the first degree. 18 ALR4th 961.
Reversed.
Justice Cavanagh, joined by Justice Levin, dissenting, stated that while the defendant’s extrajudicial confession was properly admitted because the corpus delicti of felony and second-degree murder had been established, the defendant’s conviction of first-degree premeditated murder should be vacated because the prosecution failed to establish the elements of premeditation and deliberation independent of the defendant’s extrajudicial confession. The corpus delicti of an offense may be established by direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, and reasonable inferences drawn from the evidence from which the trier of fact may reasonably find that acts constituting all of the essential elements of the offense have been committed and that someone’s criminality was responsible for the commission. The establishment must be independent of a defendant’s extrajudicial confession, however. After the corpus delicti is established, the confession may be admitted subject to applicable constitutional and evidentiary challenge. There is no reason to apply the rule differently where first-degree premeditated murder is charged. In this case, the prosecution presented no independent evidence of deliberation and premeditation and thus failed to establish the corpus delicti of first-degree premeditated murder. The trial court should have dismissed the premeditated murder charge after the prosecution presented its case in chief. The defendant’s extrajudicial confession was properly admitted, however, because the corpus delicti of felony and second-degree murder had been established independently of the confession. Because the jury’s verdict implicitly included a finding that the defendant intended to kill and the finding is supported by sufficient evidence, remand for entry of a conviction of second-degree murder and resentencing was proper.
129 Mich App 362; 341 NW2d 143 (1983) reversed.
Opinion of the Court
1. Homicide — First-Degree Murder — Confessions.
In a prosecution of first-degree premeditated murder, the elements of premeditation and deliberation need not be shown independent of a defendant’s confession to sustain a conviction of first-degree premeditated murder where it is shown, independent of the defendant’s confession, that common-law or statutory second-degree murder was committed by the defendant (MCL 750.316; MSA 28.548).
2. Homicide — First-Degree Murder — Confessions.
Where it is shown, without reference to a defendant’s confession, that a common-law or statutory second-degree murder was committed by the defendant, no injustice results in admitting a defendant’s confession which shows that the murder, in addition, was deliberate and premeditated and thereby results in proving the statutorily heightened crime of first-degree murder (MCL 750.316, 750.317; MSA 28.548, 28.549).
3. Homicide — Corpus Delicti.
Corpus delicti, as used in homicide cases, refers not to the body of the deceased, but to the body of the wrong — the loss sustained; in criminal homicide prosecutions, the delicti or essence of the wrong is the wrongful taking of a human life by a criminal agency.
4. Homicide — Corpus Delicti.
The corpus delicti rule does not require, in criminal homicide prosecutions, independent proof of each and every element of the particular grade and kind of common-law or statutory criminal homicide charged as a condition of admissibility of a defendant’s confession.
Dissenting Opinion by Cavanagh, J.
5. Homicide — First-Degree Murder — Corpus Delicti — Extrajudicial Confessions.
The corpus delicti of ñrst-degree murder, including the elements of premeditation and deliberation, must be established by evidence independent of an accused’s extrajudicial confession (MCL 750.316; MSA 28.548).
6. Homicide — Evidence — Corpus Delicti — Extrajudicial Confessions.
The corpus delicti of an offense may be established by direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, and reasonable inferences drawn from the evidence from which the trier of fact may reasonably ñnd that acts constituting all of the essential elements of the offense have been committed and that someone’s criminality was responsible for the commission; the establishment must be independent of a defendant’s extrajudicial confes sion, however; once established, the confession may be admitted subject to applicable challenge.
Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Louis J. Caruso, Solicitor General, George B. Mullison, Prosecuting Attorney, and Thomas J. Rasdale, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.
State Appellate Defender (by Mardi Crawford) for the defendant.

Opinion:
Ryan, J.
The defendant's conviction for first-degree premeditated murder was vacated by the Court of Appeals because the prosecution failed to produce evidence, independent of the defendant's confession, of the elements of premeditation and deliberation. The Court found that result to be required by the corpus delicti rule.
We disagree and reverse.
I
Defendant was charged with the first-degree murder of his next door neighbor, 79-year-old Frances Brattler. The information alleged that defendant had murdered the victim in a wilful, deliberate, and premeditated manner, or during the perpetration or attempted perpetration of a larceny, or both, contrary to MCL 750.316; MSA 28.548. Defendant was bound over on a charge of open murder, convicted by a jury of first-degree premeditated murder, and sentenced to the mandatory term of life imprisonment.
Trial testimony was that the victim was found dead in the dining room of her Bay City, Michigan, home on April 15, 1978. It was at first believed that she died from natural causes. However, an autopsy revealed that the cause of death was a single stab wound, inflicted by moderate force, which had penetrated the victim's breastbone and severed the aorta. Death was almost instantaneous. Several bruises were found which were said to have been inflicted shortly before or after death.
The victim's daughter and son-in-law testified that the victim always locked her doors, kept some money in her purse, and was a fastidious housekeeper. When the body was discovered, the front door was unlocked, the victim's wallet was empty, a sugar canister was open in the kitchen, and a cup of sugar with a napkin placed over it was found near the front door. The victim's car was also missing.
Several of defendant's friends testified that they saw him driving the victim's car from April 14 through April 16. They claimed that the defendant told them that he had borrowed it from his aunt or grandmother. Defendant was also seen in the vicinity of his house during the evening of April 13, the night of the murder.
After defendant was arrested on April 16, he told police where the car and the knife he used in the killing could be found. Both were recovered. Defendant's fingerprints were found inside and outside the car, but no identifiable fingerprints were obtained from the knife. Blood matching that of the victim and fibers similar to those in her robe were discovered on the knife. The victim's daughter testified that the knife was similar to one that her mother kept in a kitchen drawer, but the handle appeared to be different. Defendant's fingerprints were found on a door frame between the kitchen and the dining room.
Shortly after the arrest, defendant gave a taped statement to the police in which he stated, in part, as follows:
Well, I was — I had just came [sic] back from my parents [sic] house and, no I didn't I was going from the other room and I was going to our house and then I saw my little brother so I walked with him a little ways and then I went through her yard and she knocked on the window and started yelling at and she called me a little bastard so after, I just ignored it and then she came out the front door and started yelling at me and then after that I just got mad and waited and waited and then at night time I went in and got her.
Later, he modified his story somewhat and claimed he went to the victim's house to apologize to her but, when he entered the house, the victim began yelling at him. Defendant became angry and attempted to strike the victim. She ran into the dining room. Defendant went into the kitchen, found a knife, and stabbed the victim. He became frightened, took the victim's car, and disposed of the knife he used in the killing by dropping it into a sewer.
At trial, when the prosecution offered into evidence the defendant's statement, defense counsel objected, citing the corpus delicti rule and arguing that the defendant's statement was not admissible until all of the elements of first-degree murder, including the elements of premeditation and deliberation, were proved independent of the statement. The objection was overruled and the trial court admitted the statement because the court said the corpus delicti of second-degree murder had been established.
The Court of Appeals, recognizing the existence of a split of authority on the issue in that Court, held that the corpus delicti rule requires that the prosecution must establish premeditation and deliberation by evidence other than a defendant's extrajudicial statement. The Court reached that conclusion because it found that the rule announced in "[People v Allen, 390 Mich 383; 212 NW2d 21 (1973)] is applicable to the present case." After concluding that the record in this case did not contain independent evidence of premeditation or deliberation, the Court of Appeals reduced the defendant's conviction to second-degree murder and remanded the case to the trial court for resentencing. Defendant's remaining allegations of error were rejected.
We think the Court of Appeals erred in its application of the corpus delicti rule to the facts of this case.
II
The history of the development of the common-law corpus delicti rule demonstrates that in homicide cases, of which this is one, the purpose for the rule is satisfied if it is shown, independent of the defendant's statement, that the named victim is dead as a result of some criminal agency. See Perkins, Criminal Law (2d ed), p 104; LaFave & Scott, Criminal Law, pp 16-17; 45 ALR2d 1316; Anno: 99 L Ed 110; People v Mondich, 234 Mich 590; 208 NW 675 (1926).
The historic office of the corpus delicti rule in homicide cases is to guard against, indeed to preclude, conviction for a criminal homicide when none was committed. Many of the early cases in which the rule, as applied to homicide cases, is discussed were prosecutions for killings occurring aboard ships upon the high seas. Frequently in such cases no body was found, for obvious reasons. As a result, the argument was advanced, and with occasional success, that no conviction should be obtained absent some evidence, independent of the defendant's confession that there was an unlawful killing, and the evidence must include proof of the existence of a corpse. However, early English courts resisted the adoption of such a rule, stating, in one case:
By the "corpus delicti," subject of the crime, is not meant that the subject of the crime must be so extent, as to fall under the senses; but that the loss sustained is felt and known. As for example: in the crime of murder, though the body cannot be reached, yet the particular loss is known . [Captain Green's Trial, 14 How St Tr 1199, 1246 (Scot Adm, 1705).]
Professor Perkins points out that Justice Storey of the United States Supreme Court felt so strongly on the subject that he said of the notion that it was necessary that a body be found as a condition of successful prosecution of a murder case:
[A] more complete encouragement and protection for the worst offenses of this sort could not be invented, than a rule of this strictness. It would amount to a universal condonation of all murders committed on the high seas. [United States v Gilbert, 25 F Cas 1287, 1290 (1834).]
As a consequence of such early forceful expressions of opinion, the rule was developed that, to satisfy the corpus delicti rule, there need not be evidence that the body of the deceased was located, it being sufficient "that the loss sustained is felt and known." Captain Green's Trial, supra. The King v Hindmarsh, 2 Leach 569; 168 Eng Rep 387 (1792); United States v Williams, 28 F Cas 636 (1858); State v Lamb, 28 Mo 218 (1859); Campbell v People, 159 Ill 9; 42 NE 123 (1895). More modern decisions likewise rejected the "no body-no corpus delicti" argument: Commonwealth v Lettrich, 346 Pa 497; 31 A2d 155 (1943); Warmke v Commonwealth, 297 Ky 649; 180 SW2d 872 (1944); People v Cullen, 37 Cal 2d 614; 234 P2d 1 (1951); Regina v Onufrejczyk, 1 All E R 247 (1955); People v Scott, 176 Cal App 2d 458; 1 Cal Rptr 600 (1959), app dis 364 US 471 (1960); State v Lung, 70 Wash 2d 365; 423 P2d 72 (1967).
Despite clarification of the early confusion about the meaning of the Latin idiom corpus delicti as used in homicide cases, there remains, among many laymen at least, some lingering misunderstanding that the corpus delicti in such cases refers to the body of the deceased. It does not, of course, and refers instead to the body (corpus) of the wrong (delicti), "the loss sustained."
In criminal homicide prosecutions, the delicti, or essence of the wrong, is the wrongful taking of a human life, a criminal killing. The Legislature has distinguished between criminal homicides of differing types and varying severity of penalty by defining and denominating them as different crimes. Whether the killer took the deceased's life in sudden passion under provocation (manslaughter, MCL 750.321; MSA 28.553) or in circumstances showing that the killer at the time of the homicide entertained an intent to kill, or an intent to inflict great bodily harm, or an intent to create a very high risk of death or great bodily harm with the knowledge that death or great bodily harm would be the probable result (second-degree murder, MCL 750.317; MSA 28.549), or murdered the victim during the commission of a statutorily enumerated felony, or murdered by means of poison or lying in wait, or with deliberation and premeditation (first-degree murder, MCL 750.316; MSA 28.548), are all circumstances relevant to determine the seriousness of the homicide as measured by the maximum and minimum penalties fixed by the Legislature. In all of the circumstances described above, however, and all the other various criminal homicides defined by the Legislature, the corpus delicti of the crime, the essential wrong, is the "loss sustained"; the taking of a human life by a criminal agency.
It is an inaccurate and unwarranted reading of the history and purpose of the corpus delicti rule that suggests the need for independent proof of each and every element of the particular grade and kind of common-law or statutory criminal homicide charged as a condition of admissibility of a defendant's confession. Such an understanding of the corpus delicti rule loses sight of the historic reason for the rule; to avoid conviction for a homicide that did not occur. The logic of the rule is not served by extending it to require proof, aliunde the defendant's confession, not only that a particular deceased lost his life and that the loss is a result of criminal agency but, in addition, proof of the aggravating circumstances which move the seriousness of the crime up the scale of criminal accountability (measured by the severity of the penalty) from manslaughter to second-degree murder or to first-degree murder. Whatever the aggravating circumstances which constitute a crime, second-degree murder instead of manslaughter, or first-degree murder instead of second-degree murder, the danger that a defendant would confess to a criminal killing which never occurred is adequately obviated when it is shown, other than by the accused's confession, that the deceased victim died as a result of a criminal agency.
While it is surely critical to a defendant whether he is convicted of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or manslaughter, given the differing penalties and related consequences, it does not follow therefrom that the danger that a criminal homicide conviction might be obtained where none was committed, requires evidence, in addition to the defendant's confession, of every element of the particular degree or grade of homicide charged.
When it is shown, without reference to the defendant's confession as it was in this case, that a common-law or statutory second-degree murder was committed by the defendant, the risk that he will be convicted of a killing when none occurred is met and obviated. No injustice results from receiving in evidence a defendant's confession that the independently proved second-degree murder he committed was, in addition, deliberate and premeditated, thereby resulting in guilt of the statutorily heightened crime of murder in the first degree.
Erecting a barrier to such a conviction in the name of the rubric that all essential elements of the "crime charged" must be independently proved, is an unwise, unnecessary, and unjust obstacle to the fair administration of criminal justice, comparable to the early common-law argument that no criminal homicide could be proved absent discovery of a corpse.
The rule announced by the Court of Appeals would be a serious and unwarranted burden upon the ability of prosecutors in Michigan to prove premeditated murder where no witness to the killing was present, save the defendant and the deceased.
We hold that the corpus delicti of first-degree premeditated murder consists of two elements: the death of the victim and some criminal agency as the cause. See People v Mondich, 234 Mich 590; 208 NW 675 (1926).
Ill
We agree with the Court of. Appeals that the defendant's remaining arguments of error are without merit.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the defendant's conviction for first-degree murder is reinstated.
Williams, C.J., and Brickley, Boyle, and Riley, JJ., concurred with Ryan, j.
At the time the offense was committed and defendant was tried, MCL 750.316; MSA 28.548 provided:
"All murder which shall be perpetrated by means of poison, or lying in wait, or any other kind of wilful, deliberate and premeditated killing, or which shall be committed in the perpetration, or attempt to perpetrate any arson, rape, robbery, burglary, larceny of any kind, extortion or kidnapping, shall be murder of the first degree, and shall be punished by solitary confinement at hard labor in the state prison for life."
People v Norwood, 68 Mich App 730, 735-736; 243 NW2d 719 (1976), lv den 399 Mich 827 (1977), People v Rappuhn, 55 Mich App 52, 57; 222 NW2d 30 (1974), 7v den 393 Mich 808 (1975), and People v Sparks, 53 Mich App 452, 458-459; 220 NW2d 153 (1974), lv den 393 Mich 135; 224 NW2d 481 (1974), held that the corpus delicti rule does not require the prosecution to establish the element of premeditation and deliberation for first-degree premeditated murder independent of the defendant's extrajudicial confession. Although we denied defendant's application for leave to appeal in Sparks, we specifically declined at that time to accept the Court of Appeals analysis of the corpus delicti issue:
"In denying leave, this Court does not wish to be understood as accepting the distinction between felony and premeditated murder in the application of the rule enunciated in People v Allen, 390 Mich 383; 212 NW2d 21 (1973), drawn by the Court of Appeals in deciding this case."
The majority of Court of Appeals decisions, however, have applied Allen, a felony-murder case, to first-degree premeditated murders. See, e.g., People v Irby, 129 Mich App 306, 322; 343 NW2d 303 (1983); People v Doyle (On Remand), 129 Mich App 145, 153; 342 NW2d 560 (1983); People v Conklin, 118 Mich App 90, 92-93; 324 NW2d 537 (1982); People v Oliver, 111 Mich App 734, 740; 314 NW2d 740 (1981), lv den 414 Mich 970 (1982); People v Johnson, 93 Mich App 667, 672; 287 NW2d 311 (1979); People v Allen, 91 Mich App 63, 66; 282 NW2d 836 (1979); People v Wells, 87 Mich App 402, 408-409; 274 NW2d 797 (1978); People v Hawkins, 80 Mich App 481, 485; 264 NW2d 33 (1978); People v Juniel, 62 Mich App 529, 536; 233 NW2d 635 (1975), lv den 396 Mich 811 (1976).
The Court of Appeals opinion contains no analysis of the application of the corpus delicti rule to premeditated murder cases. Instead, the Court relied, for its conclusion, upon Justice Levin's opinion for the Court of Appeals in Allen which was later adopted by this Court. Allen, however, was a first-degree felony-murder case, not a first-degree premeditated murder case. Therefore, the "independent evidence" required by Allen was evidence of another felony, not a state of mind of the defendant. Moreover, when Allen was written, a conviction for first-degree felony murder could be obtained in this state for any homicide, even accidental homicide, occurring during the commission of one of the felonies enumerated in the first-degree murder statute. Consequently, the homicide itself, in such cases, need not have been a "criminal homicide" in the common-law sense. That is no longer the case because in People v Aaron, 409 Mich 672; 299 NW2d 304 (1980), we held that a killing occurring during the perpetration of one of the felonies enumerated in MCL 750.316; MSA 28.548 is murder in the first degree only if the killing amounted to murder at common law.