Court Opinion

ID: 9737372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:23:29.443946+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:58.484217
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE KARNS, dissenting: The rule of law deriving from England and existing generally throughout the United States, as the majority acknowledges, is that a person cannot be convicted on his confession standing alone, unless corroborated by some independent evidence which tends to establish the occurrence of the crime. (People v. Lambert (1984), 104 Ill. 2d 375, 472 N.E.2d 427 (and cases therein cited).) Regardless of the circumstances under which a confession is given, and the apparent voluntariness, a suspicion of untrustworthiness remains without independent corroboration. We know that men confess to crimes they do not commit; perhaps in the case of sex crimes involving one’s family, because of shame, the thought in the mind becomes the act, when in reality the act did not occur, or, as here, some lesser conduct may have occurred, as the testimony of Dr. Pulido cannot in my opinion be considered corroborative of sexual intercourse. See People v. O’Neil (1960), 18 Ill. 2d 461, 464, 165 N.E.2d 319, 321. The majority has accurately described Dr. Pulido’s findings, but she could not give an opinion that sexual intercourse had occurred. A fair reading of her testimony was that she found it unlikely considering the absence of sperm and the fact that the hymen was intact. It seems apparent without the need for elaboration that the fact that a 13-year-old girl has a “stretched out” hymen does not “tend” to corroborate sexual intercourse. The findings and facts alluded to in the majority opinion cannot be considered corroborative when the opinion of the same witness was that she could give no positive opinion. Dr. Pulido was the only witness relied upon for corroboration. The corroboration in Lambert was more persuasive than that present here but the court found inadequate proof of the corpus delicti. The result in Lambert requires reversal here. In Lambert, the court declined to abandon the rule of law requiring traditional proof of the corpus delicti. We are bound to adhere to that holding.