Corpus Delicti
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(Latin for "body of the crime"; plural: ), in Western law, is the principle that a crime must be proven to have occurred before a person could be convicted of having committed that crime. For example, a person cannot be tried for
larceny Larceny is a crime involving the unlawful taking or theft of the personal property of another person or business. It was an offence under the common law of England and became an offence in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of Eng ...
unless it can be proven that property has been stolen. Likewise in order for a person to be tried for arson, it must be proven that a criminal act resulted in the burning of a property. '' Black's Law Dictionary'' (6th ed.) defines "''corpus delicti'' as: "the fact of a crime having been actually committed". In
common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...
systems, the concept has its outgrowth in several principles. Many jurisdictions hold as a legal rule that a
defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one juris ...
's out-of-court confession alone, is insufficient evidence to prove the defendant's guilt beyond reasonable doubt. A corollary to this rule is that an accused cannot be convicted solely upon the testimony of an accomplice. Some jurisdictions also hold that without first showing independent corroboration that a crime has occurred, the prosecution may not introduce evidence of the defendant's statement.


Requirements

In general, all ''corpus delicti'' requires at a minimum: # The occurrence of the specific injury; and # some criminal act as the source of the injury. For example: * Homicide: 1) An individual has died 2) as a result of action (or inaction) by another person. * Larceny: 1) Property is missing 2) because it was stolen. In essence ''corpus delicti'' of crimes refers to evidence that a violation of law occurred; no literal 'body' is needed.


Murder cases

When a person disappears and cannot be contacted, many police agencies initiate a
missing person A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as Life, alive or Death, dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accide ...
case. If, during the course of the investigation, detectives believe that they have been murdered, then a "body" of evidentiary items, including physical, demonstrative and testimonial evidence, must be obtained to establish that the missing person has indeed died, and that their death was by
homicide Homicide is an act in which a person causes the death of another person. A homicide requires only a Volition (psychology), volitional act, or an omission, that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from Accident, accidenta ...
, before a suspect can be charged with murder. The clearest evidence in these cases is the physical body of the deceased. However, in the event that a body is not present or has not yet been discovered, it is possible to prove a crime took place if sufficient circumstantial evidence is presented to prove the matter beyond a reasonable doubt.B. Berg, ''Criminal Investigation'', McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2007 For example, the presence at a missing person's home of spilled human blood, identifiable as that person's, in sufficient quantity to indicate
exsanguination Exsanguination is the loss of blood from the circulatory system of a vertebrate, usually leading to death. The word comes from the Latin 'sanguis', meaning blood, and the prefix 'ex-', meaning 'out of'. Exsanguination has long been used as a met ...
, demonstrates—even in the absence of a corpse—that the possibility that no crime has occurred, and the missing person is merely missing, is not reasonably credible.


Misinterpretation

The British serial killer John George Haigh destroyed the bodies of his victims with acid apparently because he thought that, in the absence of a corpse, murder could not be proven because there was no ''corpus delicti''. Haigh had misinterpreted the Latin word ''corpus'' as a literal body rather than a figurative one. This had previously been the case, under Matthew Hale's Rule of "no body, no crime", but in the twentieth century, the law expanded to allow prosecution for murder solely on circumstantial evidence. The sovereign citizen movement often uses this term during routine traffic stops. Sovereign citizens believe that traffic infractions are not crimes, and thus cannot be proven in a court of law.


See also

* Corroboration in Scots law *
Element (criminal law) In most common law jurisdictions, an element of a crime is one of a set of facts that must all be proven to convict a defendant of a crime. Before a court finds a defendant Verdict, guilty of a criminal offense, the prosecution must present evide ...
* Murder conviction without a body


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Corpus delicti Criminal law Evidence law Legal rules with Latin names