Opinion ID: 1974989
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Statements made after the robbery

Text: On direct examination, Henry Clayton Lewis, Jr., a State witness, when asked: what, if anything, do you remember that Edward Sabatino and Timothy Anderson said at that time? [i. e. back at the Taylor home after the trip to the Elm Ice Company], answered: Well, Timmy Anderson and Eddie Sabatino said that they had to shoot the guy. (Emphasis supplied) On cross-examination by counsel for Anderson, the following colloquy took place. Q. Well, I think you testified that you didn't remember whether Eddie said something about what happened at Elm Ice or whether Timmy said it? A. No. They were both more or less talking at the same time. (Emphasis added) Assuming that the cross-examination did not sufficiently clarify Lewis' previous testimony to mean that both, Anderson and Sabatino, while in close proximity to each other, had respectively blurted out that they had to shoot the guy and that there was insufficient evidence to indicate which one of the two defendants had made the statement, nevertheless, we conclude that there was no error in the admission in evidence of the statement, even if viewed as an extrajudicial admission by codefendant Sabatino. Indeed, Lewis had further testified on direct examination that Anderson told him that when he [Anderson] pulled the trigger he had aimed for the guy's shoulder. This was an explicit corroboration by Anderson of the particular statement made by Sabatino, if he did make it, on the issue regarding who shot Lalumiere. Such corroborative statement on the part of Anderson was more than sufficient to render any extrajudicial statement by Sabatino the adoptive admission of Anderson. [9]
Both Anderson and Sabatino contend that, at that point during the trial when the State first introduced their extrajudicial admissions, the corpus delicti of the crime of murder had not been established by the evidence independently of their incriminating extrajudicial statements and that it was reversible error to admit the same in evidence. True, in State v. Davis, Me., 374 A.2d 322 (1977), we stated that [i]t is now well-established law in Maine that the corpus delicti of the crime of unlawful homicide punishable as murder consists of: (1) evidence creating a substantial belief that the identity of the deceased is the person named in the indictment as the victim; (2) evidence creating a substantial belief that the crime charged had been committed by someone. (Emphasis provided) Id. at 324. From the underscored terminology, the defendants argue that, under the corpus delicti rule, the State was obliged to produce evidence substantiating all the elements of the crime charged (in this case, murder under section 201(1)(A)), including the mens rea element of an intentional or knowing killing, before any incriminating admissions could be admitted. The State, on the other hand, claims that the underlying reason for the corpus delicti doctrine rests in the desire to safeguard an accused against the possibility of being convicted of an alleged crime not in fact committed (see State v. Hoffses, 147 Me. 221, 224, 85 A.2d 919, 921 (1952)) and that this basic purpose of the rule is satisfied, in the instant case, once the State proves that an unlawful homicide occurred. The State maintains that the rule should not require proof of the particular mens rea factor accompanying the unlawful homicide, the several culpable states of mind with which the unlawful homicide is committed, although constituting elements of the crime charged, being by legislative edict determinative of the degree or grade of the single offense of unlawful homicide for the purpose of punishment. This issue was expressly reserved and left undecided in State v. Davis, supra at 325, n. 3. See also State v. Kelley, Me., 308 A.2d 877, 880, n. 5 (1973). But cf. State v. Lund, Me., 266 A.2d 869, 877 (1970), where the evidence was deemed sufficient to establish the corpus delicti of unlawful homicide, whether manslaughter or murder. The formula articulating the standard of proof in the application of the corpus delicti rule has been expressed by this Court both ways. In the more recent cases, the rule was said to require that, at the time confessions or inculpatory admissions of an accused are sought to be introduced in evidence, the State must have presented sufficient credible evidence as will create a really substantial belief that the crime charged has actually been committed by someone. State v. Wardwell, 158 Me. 307, 321, 183 A.2d 896, 904 (1962); State v. Atkinson, Me., 325 A.2d 44, 46, n. 2 (1974); State v. Davis, supra (1977). But, in State v. McPhee, 151 Me. 62, 65, 115 A.2d 498, 500 (1955) and in State v. Jones, 150 Me. 242, 245, 108 A.2d 261, 262 (1954), the evidentiary proof under the rule was stated to require that the State have presented sufficient credible evidence to raise a really substantial belief that a crime has actually been committed by someone. We view the rule in its use of either phraseology as not projecting an all-inclusive concept. Proof that a crime has been committed by someone does not mean any crime without reference to the particular offense charged against the accused, nor does proof of the crime charged purport to intend more than a showing that the criminal act itself was committed, in the instant case, the criminal homicide, whoever may have been the perpetrator and whatever may have been his state of mind. We agree with the State's contention that the policy behind the corpus delicti rule is to avoid the possibility that someone will be falsely convicted of a crime when in fact no crime was committed. State v. Grant, Me., 284 A.2d 674, 675 (1971). In the case of any criminal homicide, whether the charge be murder or manslaughter, the rule is satisfied when there is sufficient evidence to support a really substantial belief that the basic unlawful homicide was committed by someone. In such circumstances, neither the identity of the perpetrator nor his state of mind constitute an essential ingredient of the corpus delicti within the meaning of the corpus delicti rule, so-called. These may be proved through the use of the defendant's own inculpatory statements. [10] See Veldorale: The Principle of Corpus Delicti and the Evidence Pertaining Thereto, 39 Temple L.Q. 1, 22 (1965). In the case at bar, to establish the corpus delicti of a criminal homicide, whether it be punishable as murder or manslaughter, the State had to present enough evidence to support a substantial belief that Lalumiere's death had been caused by a criminal agency and was not due to suicide, accident or natural causes. State v. Shanahan, Me., 404 A.2d 975 (1979). In State v. Cazier, 521 P.2d 554 (Utah 1974), a negligent homicide case, the defendant contended, as Anderson does in this case, that the corpus delicti of the crime included the total proof of all of the elements necessary to convict him of the crime charged, including that he was the driver of the automobile, under the influence of intoxicating liquor, and that he negligently caused the death. The Court ruled that such was not so, since the term corpus delicti refers only to evidence that a crime has been committed. The death of a human being may be brought about by any one of four means: (1) natural causes; (2) accident; (3) suicide; or (4) criminal means. In establishing the corpus delicti of murder, two elements must be established: (1) the fact of death of the victim; and (2) the criminal agency of another responsible for that death. Tertrou v. Sheriff, Clark County, 89 Nev. 166, 509 P.2d 970 (1973). See also People v. Amaya, 40 Cal.2d 70, 251 P.2d 324 (1952). We find no error in the ruling of the trial Justice that the prerequisites of the corpus delicti rule had been met at the time the defendant's inculpatory statements were admitted in evidence. Indeed, the State's evidence showed that the victim's body was discovered by a passerby slumped over in a chair behind a counter at his place of business with a single bullet hole in his chest. The victim did own a bb-pellet pistol which was found on the floor between his feet. Undoubtedly, this firearm was kept nearby for his protection, since he operated a fuel supply business on the cash basis and had a long standing practice of keeping large amounts of cash in his office. On January 25, 1978 some two thousand dollars had already been turned in by the company's delivery drivers to Lalumiere at the time of his death. The State medical examiner had testified that Lalumiere was shot with a .22-caliber bullet, which was retrieved from the body at the autopsy thus indicating that Lalumiere did not take his own life with the bb-pellet gun. Within minutes of the time when he was found dead slumped in his chair, Lalumiere had spoken with his daughter and she testified that her father sounded normal, testimony militating against suicide. The particular wound from the .22-caliber bullet obviously ruled out death by accident or due to natural causes. The absence of a .22-caliber pistol anywhere near the victim pointed exclusively to death being caused by the criminal agency of another.
Anderson complains about certain extrajudicial inculpatory statements made by John Taylor, a prosecution witness, which were taken by the police, so it is claimed, in violation of Taylor's Miranda rights and which were admitted at trial over Anderson's objection. This point of appeal is without merit as the Fifth-Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from self-incrimination is a personal privilege which adheres to the person and may not be vicariously asserted by a third party. State v. Melvin, Me., 390 A.2d 1024-1029 (1978); Couch v. United States, 409 U.S. 322, 93 S.Ct. 611, 34 L.Ed.2d 548 (1973); Rogers v. United States, 340 U.S. 367, 71 S.Ct. 438, 95 L.Ed. 344 (1951). [11]
Anderson's next point on appeal is that the Superior Court Justice committed reversible error in refusing to charge the jury as requested that Anderson's extrajudicial statements made to John Taylor, Norman Estes, Henry Lewis and Michelina Collelo Taylor, while in a nervous state, immediately upon returning to the Taylor apartment after the shooting were inherently trustworthy statements within the excited utterance principle as defined by Rule 803(2), M.R.Evid. These statements, as variously testified to, were to the effect that Anderson did not intend to kill Lalumiere, that he did not mean to shoot the guy, that he aimed for the man's shoulder, that he wished he hadn't shot the man. There is no merit to this claim. In the first place, the statements were not admitted under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule, but under Rule 801(d)(2) as admissions offered against the defendant as his own statements. Secondly, even if the statements had been admitted as excited utterances under Rule 803(2), M.R.Evid., that would not justify a binding instruction by the presiding justice to the jury that such utterances are inherently trustworthy. Their admission in evidence as excited utterances would only mean that the statements had, preliminarily at least, overcome the presumption of untrustworthiness which the hearsay rule generally attaches to extrajudicial statements, on the theory that they were made under conditions which stilled the voice of reflective self-interest and suspended the individual's powers of fabrication. As any other evidence, however, their reliability remains for ultimate jury assessment. As in the case of dying declarations, it would have been the task of the jury to determine the weight and credibility to be given to Anderson's declarations, if admitted as excited utterances, assigning to them such weight, or none at all, as in their judgment the underlying facts proved or disproved that the statements were factually made under the stress of excitement caused by the coincident event or shortly resulting therefrom and were not the result of a reflecting mind seeking exculpatory excuses. See State v. Chaplin, Me., 286 A.2d 325, 332 (1972). The trial Justice was correct in leaving to the jury the issue of the trustworthiness of Anderson's extrajudicial statements.