Opinion ID: 1060156
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Corroboration of confession

Text: Clagett moved to strike the charges of robbery and capital murder during the commission of a robbery on the ground that there was no corroborating evidence of the robbery to support the confession. When, as here, the commission of the crime has been fully confessed by the accused, only slight corroborative evidence is necessary to establish the corpus delicti. Clozza, 228 Va. at 133, 321 S.E.2d at 279. Here, in addition to Clagett's admission that Holsinger had taken the money from the cash register, the evidence showed that the main entrance to the Inn was locked when it would normally have been open; the rear entrance was open when it would normally have been locked; the cash drawer of the register was open and empty; and the owner and three other persons were found murdered at the scene. These facts provide the necessary corroborative evidence that the crime of robbery had been committed. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in failing to strike the robbery charge. Clagett further asserted that there was no evidence to corroborate his confessed role as the triggerman. In addressing a similar contention in Roach v. Commonwealth, 251 Va. 324, 468 S.E.2d 98 (1996), we said: The Commonwealth need not corroborate an entire confession, but it must corroborate the elements of the corpus delicti. In the present case, the Commonwealth met its burden of corroborating the corpus delicti of capital murder. The corpus delicti of a homicide consists of proof of the victim's death from the criminal act or agency of another person. Id. at 344, 468 S.E.2d at 110 (quoting Swann v. Commonwealth, 247 Va. 222, 236, 441 S.E.2d 195, 205, cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 234, 130 L.Ed.2d 158 (1994)). As in Roach, the Commonwealth produced evidence that the killings were not accidental or self-inflicted, but were the act of some criminal agent, and that the confessed triggerman possessed a weapon and ammunition consistent with the type used to commit the murders. Moreover, the record is totally devoid of any evidence that Holsinger, the only other criminal actor present, was potentially the triggerman. A defendant's hypothesis negating the Commonwealth's theory of the case must be supported by some evidence in the record and may not arise from the imagination of the defendant or his counsel alone. See Goins v. Commonwealth, 251 Va. 442, 467, 470 S.E.2d 114, 130-31 (1996); Graham v. Commonwealth, 250 Va. 79, 85-86, 459 S.E.2d 97, 100 (1995). Because the Commonwealth sufficiently corroborated the corpus delicti of capital murder and the predicate felony of robbery, the trial court did not err in failing to strike the capital murder charges.