Court Opinion

ID: 9774639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:28:01.039829+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:12.278739
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
Appellant contends in our opinion we have permitted extrajudicial statements, admitted over objection, to be considered in proving the corpus delicti without necessary independent proof thereof.
As stated in the recent case of State v. Harris, Mo.Sup., 313 S.W.2d 664, 670, “Under the present statute the offense of receiving stolen property connotes receiving such property, knowing it to have been stolen, and with a purpose or design to deprive someone of a lawful interest or property right therein.” Essentially these are the elements comprising the corpus delicti of the crime.
 It is the established law that when the corpus delicti has not been sufficiently proven, an uncorroborated extrajudicial confession or statement in the nature of an admission of guilt cannot be regarded as evidence tending to show guilt. Yet this rule does not require full proof of the body of the offense, independent of the confession or statement. As stated by our Supreme Court in State v. Deyo, 358 S.W.2d 816, 819, “If there is evidence of corroborating circumstances independent of the confession, which tends to prove the offense by confirming matters related in the confession, both the corroborating circumstances and the confession may be considered in determining whether or not the corpus delicti has been established. (Citations omitted.) We have said only slight corroborating facts have been held sufficient (see State v. Truster, Mo.Sup., 334 S.W.2d 104, citing cases), and, notwithstanding the general practice, it is not essential that the independent proof of the corpus delicti come first in the order of proof.”
Defendant does not question that there is ample proof that the fans were stolen property. It is usually difficult if not impossible to adduce direct and positive proof of guilty knowledge, and this element of the offense may be inferred from facts and circumstances in evidence. State v. Ham, Mo.Sup., 104 S.W.2d 232, 233; State v. Eggleston, Mo.App., 27 S.W.2d 726, 728. The evidence, without considering the extrajudicial statements of defendant, tended to prove that Ciarelli either personally or acting in concert with the others present with him received the fans and knew they were stolen when he received them, (State v. Brown, Mo.Sup., 332 S.W. 2d 904, 909) and also tended to prove defendant had a purpose or design to deprive the owner of the fans of its property right therein. As stated in State v. Brown, supra, “ * * * the issue of ‘intent to defraud’ has now been added by the 1955 amendment * * * but such intent may be inferred from the facts shown.”
There would be no useful purpose served in restating the independent evidence of corroborating circumstances tending to prove the constitutive elements of the crime. The corpus delicti was sufficiently proved to permit the evidence of the questioned extrajudicial statements. The motion for rehearing is overruled.