Opinion ID: 692299
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: 46 In order to prove that Waldemer lied to the grand jury, the government had to show that, in fact, the Kassly Law Firm had reimbursed him for union campaign and business expenses. Prosecutors submitted into evidence such documents as Waldemer's expense reports and letters to the Kassly Law Firm in which he discussed the arrangements for the reimbursements. Waldemer now argues that these documents constitute uncorroborated out-of-court statements by the defendant that may not, by themselves, support his conviction. 47 A defendant may not be convicted based solely on his own uncorroborated admissions made after the [crime] has ended. United States v. Mukovsky, 863 F.2d 1319, 1325 (7th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1067, 109 S.Ct. 1345, 103 L.Ed.2d 813 (1989). Statements that a defendant made before or during the commission of the crime do not have to be corroborated to convict the defendant. See id. We grant that the expense reports and letters constitute out-of-court statements by the defendant. And we will even assume, for the sake of argument, that they are uncorroborated. 2 However, the doctrine that a defendant's own words alone may not convict him does not apply here. 48 Waldemer submitted the statements at issue in 1986, 1987, and 1988, well before he committed perjury in 1991. Because Waldemer made the statements at issue before he committed the crime, the statements are not the sorts of verbalization at which the requirement of corroboration is directed--they are neither admissions nor confessions. See Warszower v. United States, 312 U.S. 342, 347, 61 S.Ct. 603, 606, 85 L.Ed. 876 (1941) (concluding that [t]he rule requiring corroboration of confessions protects the administration of criminal law against errors based upon untrue confessions alone.). 49 The expense reports and notes to the Kassly Law Firm are merely incriminating evidence that happen also to be Waldemer's statements. Through them, Waldemer does not admit that he lied to the grand jury; rather, he evidences the occurrence of a transaction that betrays his lie. Thus, the expense reports, notes, invoices, and checks presented enough evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Waldemer lied to the grand jury. 50 As the remainder of Waldemer's claims lack merit, we do not discuss them. 51 AFFIRMED. 52