Court Opinion

ID: 9571305
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:30:38.117828+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:17.360862
License: Public Domain

Justice Whiting,
dissenting.
I cannot agree with that part of the majority opinion which sustains the trial court’s refusal of Instruction “A.” In my opinion, such approval not only overrules at least two Virginia cases enunciating a basic principle of criminal law, but also sanctions a clear violation of Watkins’s constitutional rights.
This case differs from one in which a defendant loses his entitlement to an instruction warning the jury of the danger of conviction based on an accomplice’s uncorroborated testimony, where there is evidence of “material facts which tend to connect the accused with the crime, sufficient to warrant the jury in crediting the truth of’ such testimony. Dillard v. Commonwealth, 216 Va. *354820, 823, 224 S.E.2d 137, 140 (1976). In that instance, the trial court decides whether sufficient corroborative evidence has been introduced to obviate the necessity of the cautionary instruction. Clark v. Commonwealth, 219 Va. 237, 242, 247 S.E.2d 376, 379 (1978); Allard v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 988, 993, 243 S.E.2d 216, 219 (1978); Dillard, 216 Va. at 824, 224 S.E.2d at 140.
Although the majority recognizes the difference between a jury’s right to convict on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice and its inability to convict on the uncorroborated confession of the defendant, it analogizes the two situations where corroboration exists. I believe that the analogy is flawed; a jury’s consideration of the credit to be given one witness’s testimony differs greatly from its ultimate decision as to whether the essential elements of the crime have been proven.
The difference is illustrated in a comparison of our holdings on these two issues. Dillard and its progeny are based on the premise that whether such standard of corroboration “has been met is a legal question for the court, not a factual question for the jury.” Id. at 824, 224 S.E.2d at 140. In contrast, although not articulated as the reason for our previous holdings in Plymale v. Commonwealth, 195 Va. 582, 597, 79 S.E.2d 610, 618 (1954), and Wheeler v. Commonwealth, 192 Va. 665, 671, 66 S.E.2d 605, 608 (1951), it is implicit that the issue whether the corpus delicti has been established is for the jury to decide, because in each we noted that the evidence was ample to establish the corpus delicti, yet reversed because the same issue involved here was not submitted to the jury. Plymale, 195 Va. at 588, 79 S.E.2d at 613; Wheeler, 192 Va. at 670, 66 S.E.2d at 607-08. Indeed, we said, “[i]t was vital to the protection of the rights of the accused that the jury be properly instructed as to the proof of the corpus delicti and the limitations on the use of his confession and admission for that purpose.” Wheeler, 192 Va. at 670-71, 66 S.E.2d at 608.
Although the majority holds that “[w]e are unwilling to say that the jury was empowered to overrule the court upon the question whether the corpus delicti was independently corroborated,” it in fact supports that proposition in footnote 2. Footnote 2 indicates that the jury instructions regarding burden of proof of the elements of the crime, including proof of the corpus delicti, adequately protect Watkins’s rights. The majority bases this conclusion on the jury’s “unfettered authority with respect to the interpretation it might give to the circumstantial evidence, or the *355weight it might give to any evidence, including the confessions themselves.” Practically speaking, this suggests that a jury may assess and weigh the evidence which independently corroborates the corpus delicti. This conflicts, however, with the majority’s conclusion that the court, and not the jury, decides that issue. Therefore if, as the majority states, the jury cannot overrule the court on whether the corpus delicti has been independently corroborated, I fail to see how those instructions protect Watkins’s right to have the jury pass on the credibility and weight of the evidence.
In my opinion, at least one of the rights referred to in Wheeler is a defendant’s right to have the jury pass upon the sufficiency of the proof of all elements of the crime. This right is a basic tenet of the common law. Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 274-76 (1952); People v. Flack et al., 125 N.Y. 324, 334, 26 N.E. 267, 270 (1891). It is also a due process right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The right of a defendant, charged with a serious crime, to have a jury pass upon all the elements thereof was articulated as the reason for two rulings reversing state court convictions resting on evidentiary presumptions, which attempted to relieve the state of its burden of proof of every essential element of the crime by shifting part of the burden to the defendant. Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 313 (1985); Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 523-24 (1979). If shifting a part of the burden of proof to the defendant in a criminal case violates his right to a jury trial, surely refusal to instruct on the requisite proof of the corpus delicti is at least an equal violation of that right.
Accordingly, I believe the issue of whether the corpus delicti has been established is not a legal question for the court, but a factual one for the jury. Therefore, I would affirm all the holdings of the trial court except that refusing Instruction “A,” reverse the judgment, and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this dissent.