Court Opinion

ID: 9445108
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:19:42.85077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:07.504540
License: Public Domain

BROWN, Circuit Judge
(specially concurring) .
I concur in the result and all that is said except that which relates to the appellant’s contention that proof of the corpus delicti must establish, as an essential element of the offense charged, the identity of the criminal as to which Judge BORAH states: “We do not at all agree. On the contrary, we share the view of most American courts that the phrase ‘corpus delicti’ includes but two elements: first, the fact of an injury or loss; and secondly, the fact of somebody’s criminality as the cause of the injury or loss. * * and then cites Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 93, 75 S.Ct. 158, 99 L.Ed. 101, 45 A.L.R.2d 1308.
I do not think it is open to us to join with the “most” American courts as on the same day the Supreme Court handed down Opper v. United States, supra, it decided Smith v. United States, 348 U.S. 147, 75 S.Ct. 194, 198, 99 L.Ed. 192. Smith categorically accepting the teaching of Forte (Forte v. United States, 68 App.D.C. 111, 94 F.2d 236, 127 A.L.R. 1120) which it cites, plainly states concerning crimes producing no tangible injury, “As to this [intangible] crime, it cannot be shown that the crime has been committed without identifying the accused. * * * We choose to apply the rule, with its broader guarantee, to crimes in which there is no tangible corpus delicti, where the corroborative evidence must implicate the accused in order to show that a crime has been committed. * * * [citing cases].”
Nor does Opper seek to undo that which Smith had just done. Smith involved the question as to what was the corpus delicti (one, two, or three elements) and the nature of the corroboration needed once that legal point was determined. Opper was concerned only with the latter point of corroboration of the crime — payment of money to influence a Government Agent — one of a type declared by Smith to be “an intangible one.” When it came to corroboration of of the element of the accused’s personal connection with the crime, the court found this in the facts stating, “It is clear that there was substantial independent evidence to establish directly the truthfulness of petitioner’s admission that he paid the Government employee money.” [Emphasis supplied].
Since Smith cites and applies the triple element test of Forte, the dissent of Mr. Justice Douglas in Smith and Opper shows, I think, that at least he thought the Court was applying Forte in part, but was wrong in not going the next step with it on the quantum of corroboration required.