Comment

Committee’s Position. The corpus delicti rule requires independent evidence of a crime’s commission besides a defendant’s admission to the offense before that statement can be used to convict him. Critics of this common law rule argue it is both under- and over-inclusive. Miller v. State, 457 S.W.3d 919, 924–25 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). The federal courts and several other states have abolished the doctrine in favor of a “trustworthiness standard.” Miller, 457 S.W.3d at 925, 927 (citing Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 93 (1954), Smith v. United States, 348 U.S. 147, 156–57 (1954), United States v. Calderon, 348 U.S. 160, 167 (1954)). Nevertheless, the doctrine remains the law in Texas. Miller, 457 S.W.3d at 926.

Whether a jury instruction is appropriate for this judge-made rule of evidentiary sufficiency is another question. The Committee concluded that a judge rarely errs in refusing to give the instruction and that trial courts should usually be advised against giving it. Despite these concerns, the Committee felt that a pattern corpus delicti instruction would help guide trial courts that wished to give it in a particular case.

While some members initially favored a comprehensive instruction specific to the offense that would operate as an additional application paragraph and instruct the jury on what elements formed the corpus delicti for that offense, the Committee ultimately decided that—if a trial judge persisted in giving a corpus delicti instruction—a simpler instruction like the following was preferable:

What Kind of Statements Require Corroboration. The corpus delicti rule only applies when a defendant has made an out-of-court statement. Carrizales v. State, 414 S.W.3d 737, 743 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013) (holding corpus delicti rule does not apply when no defendant statement at issue). The rule does apply to both full confessions and other defendant admissions. See Franks v. State, 90 S.W.3d 771 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2002, pet. ref’d); Bradford v. State, 515 S.W.3d 433, 440 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2017, pet. ref’d) (citing cases).

The corpus delicti rule does not apply to in-court confessions. Martin v. State, 3 S.W.2d 90, 90 (Tex. Crim. App. 1927). Nor does the rule apply to extraneous offenses introduced at a trial’s punishment stage. Bible v. State, 162 S.W.3d 234, 246–47 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005).

Analyses of Appellate Opinions. The Committee located two lines of precedent about when a corpus delicti instruction should be given. The first group of cases held that a trial court does not err if it refuses to instruct a jury on the corpus delicti rule when it is established by other evidence. Baldree v. State, 784 S.W.2d 676, 686–87 (Tex. Crim. App. 1989); Willard v. State, 11 S.W. 453 (Tex. Crim. App. 1889). The second group of cases reversed for failure to give the instruction, but without any reasoning why a jury instruction would best remedy the evidentiary insufficiency. Johnson v. State, 36 S.W.2d 748, 750 (Tex. Crim. App. 1931); Silva v. State, 278 S.W. 216 (Tex. Crim. App. 1925); Dunlap v. State, 98 S.W. 845, 846 (Tex. Crim. App. 1906).

In 1990, the court of criminal appeals stated in a footnote in Gribble v. State, 808 S.W.2d 65, 72 n.15 (Tex. Crim. App. 1990), that “when evidence independent of the confession is alone sufficient to prove corpus delicti, the jury need not even be instructed that an extrajudicial confession must be corroborated.” The court observed that this principle likely began as “an isolated holding of harmlessness based on overwhelming evidence,” and that over time, it “transformed . . . into a general doctrine of no error based on the sufficiency of evidence.” Gribble, 808 S.W.2d at 72 n.15. Appellate courts continue to apply the rule that sufficient evidence of the corpus delicti other than the defendant’s extrajudicial statement obviates the need for a jury instruction. See, e.g., Lara v. State, 487 S.W.3d 244, 249 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2015, pet. ref’d); Aguilera v. State, 425 S.W.3d 448, 458 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2011, no pet.).