Court Opinion

ID: 9638665
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:49:50.80878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:08.469571
License: Public Domain

SANBORN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I am of the opinion that the evidence was sufficient to take the case to the jury and that the conviction of the defendant should be affirmed.
The law is that, unless corroborated by independent evidence of the corpus delicti, the extrajudicial admissions of a defendant are not sufficient to authorize a conviction, but the independent evidence need not be of itself sufficient proof of guilt and need only be a substantial showing which together with the defendant’s admissions establishes the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Gregg v. United States, 8 Cir., 113 F.2d 687, 690.
The defendant, when he was arrested at Council Bluffs, Iowa, on November 27, 1939, had in his possession the keys to the Minnesota automobile, which was then in Council Bluffs, and in which he had unquestionably come to Council Bluffs. Some of the spurious instruments which he was charged with transporting were on his person and some were in the car. He had a receipt from the Western Union Telegraph Company showing that on November 10, 1939, he had telegraphed from Minneapolis, Minnesota, $10 to D. Loftus at Omaha, Nebraska. There was other *831evidence that the defendant had recently been in Minneapolis. From this independent evidence it could certainly be inferred that the defendant had recently transported himself and the Minnesota car from Minnesota to Iowa. The spurious instruments were of a kind not readily procurable. They were the working tools of a cheat and a crook. I think the evidence aside from the defendant’s admissions warranted the inference that he was a craftsman of the underworld who had come into Iowa from Minnesota carrying with him the tools of his craft. Compare Berryman v. United States, 6 Cir., 259 F. 208; Lindsey v. United States, 4 Cir., 264 F. 94. When the admissions of the defendant, which were shown to be entirely voluntary, are considered in connection with the other evidence in the case, there can, I think, be no doubt of the sufficiency of the evidence to prove that the crime charged was committed and that the defendant committed it.