State v. Edwards, CR-90-197
| Decision Date | 31 May 1991 |
| Docket Number | CR-90-197 |
| Parties | STATE v. Leland Gregory EDWARDS, Sr. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
James H. Evans, Atty. Gen., and P. David Bjurberg, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Thomas E. Harrison, Asst. Dist. Atty., Mobile, for the State.
W. Gregory Hughes, Mobile, for appellee.
Leland Gregory Edwards, Sr., the appellee, was indicted for murder on March 20, 1990, by the Mobile County grand jury. Ala.Code 1975, § 13A-6-2. In a pretrial motion, the appellee moved for a dismissal of the charge, alleging that there was insufficient evidence to establish a corpus delicti. After a hearing, which consisted of arguments of counsel and the introduction of the autopsy report pertaining to the victim and a copy of the appellee's confession, the trial court granted the motion. In granting the motion, the court stated:
The state appeals, pursuant to A.R.Crim.P.Temp. 17. 1
From our reading of the scarce facts in the record, it appears that the appellee reported the disappearance of his wife to the police two days after he allegedly left her in a parking lot in front of a nightclub in Mobile County. Several weeks later, her body was found in an isolated wooded area. She was fully clothed and her purse was missing. The pathologist was unable to determine the cause of death. Eight years later, the appellee turned himself in to the police, claiming that his conscience was bothering him and confessing to killing his wife by choking her to death with his hands and then dumping her body in an isolated wooded area. He stated in his confession that he had previously told his daughter that he had killed his wife and that he had given his daughter his wife's wedding ring.
The state contends that it is improper to test the sufficiency of the state's evidence to prove the corpus delicti of the crime by a motion to dismiss. It argues that proof of the corpus delicti is so inextricably bound up with the entire evidence to be offered by the state that its determination in a pretrial proceeding would put the state to the task of trying its case twice. It concludes that it would be better practice to defer such a determination until the trial.
A.R.Crim.P.Temp. 15.5(c)(1) provides:
"A motion to dismiss the indictment may be based upon objections to the venire, the lack of legal qualification of an individual grand juror, the legal insufficiency of the indictment, or the failure of the indictment to charge an offense."
Rule 16.2(a) provides:
"Objections based on defects in the commencement of the proceeding or in the charge, other than lack of subject matter...
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Ankrom v. State
...may not dismiss an otherwise valid indictment based on the merits of the allegations contained therein. Id.; see State v. Edwards, 590 So.2d 379, 380 (Ala.Crim.App.1991) (holding that grounds for dismissal of an indictment that are “entwined with the merits of the case ... should not be mad......
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State v. Worley
...of an indictment based on the insufficiency of the evidence or, as in this case, a possible lack of evidence. See State v. Edwards, 590 So.2d 379 (Ala.Crim.App.1991) (establishment of the corpus delicti requires proof of facts by the State so entwined with the merits of the case that a deci......
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State v. Stallworth
...of an indictment based on the insufficiency of the evidence or, as in this case, a possible lack of evidence. SeeState v. Edwards, 590 So.2d 379 (Ala. Crim. App. 1991) (establishment of the corpus delicti requires proof of facts by the State so entwined with the merits of the case that a de......
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State v. Worley, No. CR-06-1879 (Ala. Crim. App. 11/13/2009)
...of an indictment based on the insufficiency of the evidence or, as in this case, a possible lack of evidence. See State v. Edwards, 590 So.2d 379 (Ala. Crim. App. 1991) (establishment of the corpus delicti requires proof of facts by the State so entwined with the merits of the case that a d......