Court Opinion

ID: 9666392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:13:37.601644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:28.254393
License: Public Domain

Robert L. Brown, Justice, concurring. I concur in the majority’s opinion and regret that a procedural failing precludes us from considering whether the evidence in this case includes sufficient evidence to corroborate an accomplice’s testimony. The parties are at odds over the test for sufficient corroborative evidence. The appellant argues that such evidence must be independent evidence which can sustain a conviction separate and apart from the accomplice’s statement. The Attorney General submits that corroborative evidence may merely be evidence verifying those facts asserted by the accomplice. Our past cases confirm that neither party hits the mark. The importance of this issue mandates some discussion of it. Arkansas law requires that the corroborative evidence tend to connect the defendant with the commission of the crime. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-89-111 (1987). Corroboration is not sufficient, if it merely shows that the crime was committed and the circumstances of the crime. Id. We have held that the “corroboration must be sufficient standing alone to establish the commission of the offense and to connect the defendant with it.” Johnson v. State, 303 Ark. 12, 17, 792 S.W.2d 863, 865 (1990); David v. State, 295 Ark. 131, 140, 748 S.W.2d 117, 122 (1988). The corroborative evidence must be substantial evidence which is stronger evidence than that which merely raises a suspicion of guilt. Henderson v. State, 279 Ark. 435, 652 S.W.2d 16 (1983). Circumstantial evidence qualifies as corroborating evidence but it, too, must be substantial. See David v. State, supra. However, corroboration need not be so substantial in and of itself to sustain a conviction. See Rhodes v. State, 280 Ark. 156, 655 S.W.2d 421 (1983); Walker v. State, 277 Ark. 137, 639 S.W.2d 742 (1982).