State v. Edwards

• Decision Date: 29 December 1976
• Docket Number: No. 76-38,76-38
• Citation: 49 Ohio St.2d 31,3 O.O.3d 18,358 N.E.2d 1051
• Parties: , 3 O.O.3d 18 THE STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. EDWARDS, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 31

49 Ohio St.2d 31

358 N.E.2d 1051, 3 O.O.3d 18

THE STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. EDWARDS, Appellant.

No. 76-38.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Dec. 29, 1976.

Syllabus by the Court

1a. The corpus delicti of a crime is the body or substance of the crime, included in which are usually two elements: (1) the act and (2) the criminal agency of the act.

b. There must be some evidence in addition to a confession tending to establish the corpus delicti, before such confession is admissible.

c. The quantum or weight of such additional or extraneous evidence is not of itself required to be equal to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, nor even enough to make a prima facie case. See State v. Maranda, 94 Ohio St. 364, 114 N.E. 1038.

2. In deciding whether a defendant's confession is involuntarily induced, the court should consider the totality of the circumstances, including the age, mentality, and prior criminal experience of the accused; the length, intensity, and frequency of interrogation; the existence of physical deprivation or mistreatment; and the existence of threat or inducement.

On December 28, 1974, Joseph Eshack, Jr., was shot and killed at his place of business located at 223 Wooster Avenue, Akron. He was found by the Akron police lying with his face down in the aisle of his storeroom. His business consisted of the sale and rental of used tools.

Prior to the police discovering Eshack, Floyd Edwards met with a friend named Standford Harris. Edwards told Harris that he was going to rob Joseph Eshack, Edwards asked Harris to participated and showed him a gun. Harris consented. Edwards and Harris entered the store and soon thereafter argued with Eshack over the price of various tools scattered over the floor. The last item discussed was a pair of wire cutters, and, as Eshack bent over to pick them up, Edwards pulled the gun from his pocket and demanded Eshack's money. Edwards grabbed Eshack's arm and a struggle ensued. Edwards fired a bullet into the back of Eshack's head. The shot was fatal.

After the shot was fired, Eshack's wallet was taken. It contained some credit cards, identification papers, other miscellaneous papers, and $65. The money was divided between Edwards and Harris. The wallet was later discarded in the basement of a nearby apartment house. Gary Hendon, a maintenance man at the Edgewood Home Apartments, found Eshack's wallet in the basement of one of the apartment buildings. Hendon knew Edwards, and remembered seeing him in that basement two or three days before finding the wallet.

At about 5:30 p. m., on January 9, 1975, Edwards was arrested by two detectives of the Akron police, Harold Craig and Grover Goodwell. Following the arrest, Edwards was taken to the police station to be interrogated. After receiving his Miranda warnings from detective sergeant Russell Cross, defendant made an oral, unrecorded incriminating statement. Also present in the room at the time of that statement were Craig and Goodwell.

At 8:20 p. m., later that day, Edwards, after receiving another explanation of his constitutional rights, gave a tape-recorded statement of his confession in the presence of assistant county prosecutor John Shoemaker, Cross and Goodwell. When the prosecutor flipped the cassette to side two, it did not properly engage. Approximately 75 feet of the tape was blank.

At 10:25 p. m., another recorded statement was taken to fill in the blank 75 feet. Shoemaker again read Edwards his Miranda warnings. Edwards repeated his confession. Also present in the room were Craig, and one Haywood Manning.

Sometime during the interrogation of Edwards the location of the gun was ascertained. A search warrant was drawn and a search of 1125 Inman Court was made. During the search, a .32 caliber automatic pistol was found. Edwards admitted that the gun was the one he used to shoot Eshack. This statement was recorded at 2:45 a. m. on January 10, 1975, after Edwards had again been advised of his constitutional rights by Shoemaker. The gun was eventually physically linked to the crime through a ballistics test.

Defendant was subsequently indicted by the Summit County Grand Jury for aggravated murder with two specifications, R.C. 2929.04(A)(3) and 2929.04(A) (7), and for aggravated robbery. The defendant was arraigned on January 17, 1975, and plead not guilty. At the arraignment, the court ordered a psychiatric examination of the defendant and set the date of the trial for March 4, 1975. Elliot Migdal, M. D., a psychiatrist, and Daniel Rienhold, a psychologist, examined defendant prior to trial. The jury found the defendant guilty of aggravated murder, guilty of the second specification and guilty of aggravated robbery. Following a mitigation hearing, defendant was sentenced to death on the aggravated-murder charge, and was also sentenced on the aggravated-robbery charge.

Upon appeal to the Court of Appeals, the judgment of the trial court was affirmed, and the cause is now before this court as a matter of right.

Stephan M. Gabalac, Pros. Atty., and Carl M. Layman, III, Asst. Prosecutor, Akron, for appellee.

Chuparkoff, Lombardi & Reed and Theodore Chuparkoff, Akron, for appellant.

C. WILLIAM O'NEILL, Chief Justice.

Appellant presents 12 assignments of error (hereinafter referred to as 'propositions of law').

I.

In his fourth proposition of law, appellant contends that the trial court erred in finding that the state had presented sufficient evidence to show the commission of an aggravated robbery prior to the admission of the appellant's confession to that offense.

The relevant rule of law is found in State v. Maranda (1916), 94 Ohio St. 364, 114 N.E. 1038, as follows:

'1. By the corpus delicti of a crime is meant the body or substance of the crime, included in which are usually two elements: 1. The act. 2. The criminal agency of the act.

'2. It has long been established as a general rule in Ohio that there must be some evidence outside of a confession tending to establish the corpus delicti, before such confession is admissible. The quantum or weight of such outside or extraneous evidence is not of itself to be equal to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, nor even enough to make it a prima facie case. * * *'

Under count two of the indictment, the material elements of aggravated robbery relevant herein include the following: (1) without the owner's consent, to obtain or exert control over the owner's property, (2) a purpose to deprive the owner of his property, and (3) the defendant in the commission of the act or in fleeing immediately thereafter, either to have on or about his person or under his control a deadly weapon or dangerous ordnance as defined in R.C. 2923.11, or to inflict serious physical harm on another.

The defendant contends that 'there is absolutely no evidence offered by the state that anything of value was ever taken from the decedent.' If not, the argument continues, excluding Edward's confessions, 'there was no evidence from which it can be said by clear and unequivocal proof that decedent was killed in the course of a robbery.' The defendant concludes that there was insufficient evidence to prove that an aggravated robbery was committed, for the following reasons: (1) the fact that the defendant was found without a wallet, when no evidence was presented that he even carried a wallet, cannot be said to be circumstantial evidence he was robbed, especially when it was discovered that the decedent did have money on his person (2) the fact that a wallet was later found containing the decedent's identification cards does not show the wallet was owned by the decedent, and (3) the evidence was not clear whether defendant was seen in the vicinity of the wallet before or after the decedent was found.

In rebuttal, the state emphasizes paragraph two of the syllabus in Maranda, supra. In order to make Edwards' confession admissible, the state need only produce some evidence of the material elements listed above. 'The quantum or weight of such outside or extraneous evidence is not of itself to be equal to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, nor even enough to make it a prima facie case.' Maranda, supra.

In the instant case, a few days following decedent's death a wallet was found in the basement of an apartment complex. The billfold contained some credit cards, identification papers and miscellaneous papers of the decedent, but no money. Considering those facts, the state concludes that sufficient evidence existed to establish the corpus delicti of aggravated robbery.

The necessity of independently proving the corpus delicti to render admissible an extrajudicial confession is a well-established rule of evidence. Its origin is explained by Judge Wanamaker in State v. Maranda, supra, at page 370, 114 N.E. at page 1040, as follows:

'This doctrine touching corpus delicti is of ancient origin and was born out of great caution by the courts, in consideration of certain cases of homicide wherein it had turned out that by reason of a failure of the government to prove the death of the person charged as having been murdered it so happened that such person sometimes survived the person accused as his murderer; therefore, the rule that there must be some evidence tending to prove the fact that death had actually ensued; which was later followed by an additional requirement of some evidence that that death was brought about by some criminal agency.'

Considering the revolution in criminal law of the 1960's and the vast number of procedural safeguards protecting the due-process rights of criminal defendants, the corpus delicti rule is supported by few practical or social-policy considerations. This court sees little reason to apply the rule with a dogmatic vengeance.

In considering the minimal requirements of Maranda and in evaluating the evidence in light of the orginary customs of our times, we conclude that the prosecution did produce some evidence tending to corroborate the material...