People v. Quinn, No. 88CA1086

• Docket Nº: No. 88CA1086
• Citation: 794 P.2d 1066
• Case Date: February 01, 1990
• Court: Court of Appeals of Colorado

Page 1066

794 P.2d 1066 The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Julie QUINN, Defendant-Appellant. No. 88CA1086. Colorado Court of Appeals,
Div. I. Feb. 1, 1990.
Rehearing Denied April 5, 1990.
Certiorari Denied Aug. 6, 1990.

Page 1067

Duane Woodard, Atty. Gen., Charles B. Howe, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen., Richard H. Forman, Sol. Gen., and John Daniel Dailey, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for plaintiff-appellee.

Eckelberger and Feldman, Ethan D. Feldman, Englewood, for defendant-appellant.

Opinion by Judge PLANK.

The defendant, Julie Quinn, appeals the judgment of conviction entered on a jury verdict finding her guilty of introducing contraband in the first degree. We affirm.

As a result of an investigation concerning a planned jail break, defendant, a deputy sheriff, admitted that she had brought alcohol to a jail inmate on four occasions, once at the Arapahoe County Jail Facility

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and three times at the Arapahoe County Justice Center.

The defendant was charged with four counts of violating section 18-8-203(1)(a), C.R.S. (1986 Repl.Vol. 8B). The jury returned a verdict of guilty as to the count at the jail and not guilty on the remaining counts.

I.

The defendant initially contends that her conviction rests solely upon her uncorroborated confession. We disagree.

The defendant claims that no independent evidence exists to corroborate her confession, and thus, the corpus delicti has not been established because no alcohol was detected by any person to substantiate the defendant's confession.

The corpus delicti, or the fact that a crime occurred, must be proved in every case. If the principal proof of the corpus delicti is a single confession of the defendant, that confession must be corroborated by evidence independent of the confession. See People v. Rankin, 191 Colo. 508, 554 P.2d 1107 (1972); People v. Smith, 182 Colo. 31, 510 P.2d 893 (1973).

However, only slight corroborating evidence is needed. See Self v. People, 167 Colo. 292, 448 P.2d 619 (1968). It is enough "if the additional evidence is sufficient to convince the jury that the crime charged is real and not imaginary." Hampton v. People, 146 Colo. 570, 362 P.2d 864 (1961). The corroborating evidence may be either circumstantial or direct. People v. Gonzales, 186 Colo. 48, 525 P.2d 1139 (1974). It is adequate corroboration merely to show that "someone committed an offense." See People v. Smith, supra.

Here, defendant told the investigators that she had supplied alcohol to a specific inmate. She also told the investigators that she had transported the alcohol into the jail in small size bottles, such as those used by airlines, and also related the exact location where she purchased the alcohol. The investigators drove to the location described and determined that the liquor store in fact sold small airline-type bottles of a certain type of liquor.

The corroborating evidence consisted of evidence indicating a deeply felt emotional attachment by defendant for the inmate, a showing that defendant had placed money in the inmate's jail account on two occasions, and a showing that both the defendant and the inmate were present at the Facility on February 11, 1987, the date charged in count one.

Other corroborating evidence consisted of an excerpt from a letter written by the inmate to the defendant in which he mentioned the type of liquor sold in the airline-type bottles and referred to a date that coincided with the date charged in count one.

We conclude that the evidence, other than the...