Opinion ID: 2638434
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Insufficient Evidence: Failure to Corroborate Garrison's Accomplice Testimony

Text: Defendant contends he is entitled to reversal of his conviction due to insufficient evidence. He claims the only evidence of his guilt came from the mouth of Garrison, whose testimony, as an accomplice, was inadmissible absent corroboration. (§ 1111.) We reject the claim because Garrison's testimony is sufficiently corroborated. Garrison admittedly was an accomplice to defendant's crime, rendering his testimony inadmissible unless corroborated. (§ 1111.) The law, however, requires only slight corroboration, and the evidence need not corroborate the testimony in every particular. ( People v. Williams (1997) 16 Cal.4th 635, 680-681, 66 Cal.Rptr.2d 573, 941 P.2d 752.) The evidence here more than meets the legal test. Garrison's testimony was amply corroborated by defendant's own extra-judicial statements to police, McLaughlin's identification of defendant, witnesses who observed the Cutlass, the location of the body shop where defendant worked (as verified by police), defendant's tattoo, and the fact that the victim's fatal wounds matched Garrison's description of how the victim was killed. Because there was adequate evidence corroborating Garrison's testimony, its admission was not error and defendant's conviction is thus supported by sufficient evidence.