Court Opinion

ID: 9739554
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:17:27.006592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:12.945488
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring.
I concur as to Parts LA. and B. I also concur as to Parts II. A., B., and D. With *712respect to Part II. C., I also concur but do so with a caveat.
I agree that the instruction as given was not a mandatory instruction. It did not direct the jury to conclude that the confession or confessions were conclusive of guilt. Rather the instruction left that assessment up to the jury.
Furthermore, the instruction as given did not prevent Shanabarger from interposing his corpus delicti defense. He did in fact assert that defense and argued it in his direct appeal. Neither did the instruction preclude Shanabarger's defense that the child died of SIDS. That claim was made by Shanabarger.
Be that as it may, it is my belief that the form in which the instruction was tendered by Shanabarger was representative of his theory of the case presented to the jury. It correctly stated the applicable law in that it advised the jury that whether voluntary or not, such confessions "are not conclusive" of guilt. The thrust of the instruction, as tendered, was more favorable to the defendant's theory of the weight to be given confessions than was the instruction as given. As given, the instruction leaned a bit more to the permissible conclusion that the confessions were conclusive of guilt rather than to the contrary conclusion as contained in the tendered instruction.
Although I am of the view that the trial court would have been better advised to give Shanabarger's instruction as tendered, in light of the post-conviction arguments made against the instruction as given, I do not see cause for reversal.