Opinion ID: 1937170
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Can the Defendant's Confession and the Accomplice's Testimony Corroborate Each Other?

Text: As noted above, confessions or admissions by a defendant and accomplice testimony require corroboration. [1] This requirement arises, in part, from concerns about the trustworthiness of such evidence. Accomplice testimony is suspect by virtue of an accomplice's self-interest in focusing blame on another person. Ware, 338 N.W.2d at 710. The requirement of corroborating evidence for a defendant's confession is intended to reduce the incidence of convictions based on false confessions. Polly, 657 N.W.2d at 466. By encouraging the development of more reliable evidence through competent investigation and discouraging dependence on possibly coercive and untrue confessions, this requirement also promotes the use of more desirable investigatory techniques by police. Id. With these purposes in mind, we consider the defendant's contention that two items of evidence, both legally insufficient to independently support a conviction, should not be adequate in combination to convict an accused. While this argument has superficial appeal, under closer examination, it is unpersuasive. We first note that we have held in prior decisions that a defendant's out-of-court confessions and admissions may corroborate the testimony of an accomplice. See State v. Bizzett, 212 N.W.2d 466, 468 (Iowa 1973) (stating the defendant himself may furnish the required corroboration of accomplice testimony); Brandt, 242 Iowa at 388, 44 N.W.2d at 693 (holding defendant's statement or confession in which he admitted his presence at the crime scene was sufficient corroboration of the testimony of accomplices); State v. Morrison, 221 Iowa 3, 7, 265 N.W. 355, 357 (1936) (holding defendant's admissions to deputy sheriff provided satisfactory corroboration of accomplice); accord State v. Jones, 511 N.W.2d 400, 405 (Iowa Ct.App.1993) (A defendant's admissions may be considered corroboration.). Although we did not explain our rationale for allowing cross corroboration in these cases, we think our decisions withstand the present scrutiny. The potential weakness in accomplice testimony is that an accomplice might lie to divert attention from or minimize his own culpability. Common sense suggests that this tendency is only exacerbated if multiple accomplices point the finger at the same defendant, because one accomplice may be emboldened to accuse the defendant, knowing another accomplice has already done so. Thus, it is not particularly reassuring that two accomplices testify to the defendant's commission of an offense. Hence, the rule that the testimony of one accomplice may not corroborate the testimony of another accomplice has developed. [2] Confessions by defendants do not suffer from the same concern. A false confession by the defendant might result, for example, from coercion, a desire to protect another, or mental illness. But unlike accomplices who might be motivated to give a common fabricated account of the crime, implicating the defendant for their mutual benefit, a defendant and an accomplice would not share a unified goal of blaming the defendant. Therefore, we do not perceive a similar danger of wrongful conviction when an accomplice's testimony is corroborated by the defendant's confession as compared to the risk of an erroneous conviction when two accomplices corroborate each other. For this reason, we reaffirm the legal principles applied in our prior cases and hold that the testimony of an accomplice and the confession of a defendant constitute acceptable corroboration, one for the other.