State v. Mauchley, 20010551.

• Decision Date: 01 April 2003
• Docket Number: No. 20010551.,20010551.
• Parties: STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Petitioner, v. Brent MAUCHLEY, Defendant and Respondent.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

67 P.3d 477

2003 UT 10

STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Petitioner, v. Brent MAUCHLEY, Defendant and Respondent.

No. 20010551.

Supreme Court of Utah.

April 1, 2003.

Mark L. Shurtleff, Att'y Gen., Christopher D. Ballard, Asst. Att'y Gen., Salt Lake City, for plaintiff.

Kent R. Hart, Salt Lake City, for defendant.

On Certiorari to the Utah Court of Appeals.

DURRANT, Associate Chief Justice:

INTRODUCTION

¶ 1 This appeal concerns the corpus delicti rule. Specifically, we consider whether the corpus delicti rule should be replaced by the trustworthiness standard that has been adopted by a growing number of jurisdictions. The corpus delicti rule prohibits convicting a person based upon his or her confession alone. Stated differently, if there is no independent evidence that a crime occurred, apart from the confession, a person cannot be convicted, even if the confession was trustworthy.

¶ 2 In this case, the defendant, Brent Mauchley, filed a motion to dismiss charges against him for insurance fraud and theft by deception because, absent his confession, there was no independent evidence that either crime actually occurred. The district court denied Mauchley's motion. He then pleaded guilty to attempted insurance fraud, but reserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion. On appeal, the court of appeals reversed the district court's denial of Mauchley's motion to dismiss because the State conceded there was insufficient evidence to convict him under the corpus delicti rule. State v. Mauchley, 2001 UT App 177, ¶¶ 1, 3, 2001 WL 587156.

¶ 3 Despite its concession, the State argues that we should reverse the court of appeals' decision because (1) the corpus delicti rule is anachronistic, (2) the rule should be abandoned in favor of the trustworthiness standard, and (3) under the trustworthiness standard, sufficient evidence exists to affirm the denial of Mauchley's motion to dismiss. We agree that the corpus delicti rule is anachronistic and we adopt the trustworthiness standard in its stead. We nevertheless affirm the court of appeals' decision because the Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution prevents application of the trustworthiness standard to this case.

BACKGROUND

¶ 4 Brent Mauchley filed an insurance claim against Salt Lake City for injuries he allegedly sustained from falling into an uncovered manhole. He claimed he fell into the manhole the evening of January 5, 1995. That same evening, he checked himself into a nearby emergency room and received treatment for his purported injuries. After seeing that the manhole was indeed uncovered, one of the hospital's security officers barricaded the opening until the problem could be remedied.

¶ 5 Salt Lake City's insurance company conducted an independent investigation of the incident. During the investigation "[t]here was never any question that [Mauchley] had fallen in the hole." Instead, the focus of the investigation was on "who was at fault for the open manhole" and the measure of damages that Mauchley should recover for his purported injuries. The insurance company settled with him on August 17, 1998.

¶ 6 Approximately six months after the settlement, Mauchley went to the South Salt Lake Police Department and voluntarily confessed that he had fabricated the story about falling into the manhole and sustaining injuries from the fall. He admitted he fabricated the story after seeing the uncovered manhole. Prior to his confession, there was no suspicion that his story was false, nor was there any evidence that a crime had been committed.

¶ 7 As a result of his confession, Mauchley was charged with two second degree felonies: insurance fraud and theft by deception. He filed a motion to dismiss the charges, arguing that the corpus delicti rule prohibited the State from using his confession to convict him because there was no independent evidence of the crime.

¶ 8 On March 23, 2000, the district court held a hearing on Mauchley's motion to dismiss. At the hearing, the court found there was sufficient evidence to satisfy the corpus delicti rule because Mauchley had filed a false insurance claim and received a settlement based on that claim. The court concluded that the claim and settlement constituted independent evidence of the crime. Moreover, it found that his "confession corroborate[d] the evidence of a false insurance claim." Therefore, the district court denied defendant's motion to dismiss. Mauchley then pleaded guilty to attempted insurance fraud, a third degree felony, but reserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion to dismiss.

¶ 9 Before the court of appeals, the State conceded that "the stipulated facts did not reflect the existence of inculpatory evidence independent of [Mauchley's] confession," Mauchley, 2001 UT App 177 at ¶ 1, because merely filing an insurance claim and receiving a settlement do not constitute criminal acts. Since "a confession alone cannot support a conviction" under the corpus delicti rule, the court of appeals ruled that the district court erred in denying the motion to dismiss. Id. at ¶¶ 1, 3.

¶ 10 We granted the State's petition for a writ of certiorari. We have jurisdiction to review the court of appeals' decision pursuant to Utah Code Ann. § 78-2-2(3)(a) (2002).

ANALYSIS

I. STARE DECISIS

¶ 11 The State is asking this court to abandon the corpus delicti rule and to replace it with the trustworthiness standard that has been adopted by a growing number of jurisdictions. "Those asking us to overturn prior precedent have a substantial burden of persuasion" due to "the doctrine of stare decisis." State v. Menzies, 889 P.2d 393, 398 (Utah 1994) (citation omitted). The doctrine of stare decisis is crucial to our system of justice because it ensures "`predictability of the law and the fairness of adjudication.'" Id. at 399 (quoting State v. Thurman, 846 P.2d 1256, 1269 (Utah 1993)). However, when we are "`clearly convinced that [a] rule was originally erroneous or is no longer sound because of changing conditions and that more good than harm will come by departing from precedent,'" we are "`not inexorably bound by [our] own precedents.'" Id. (quoting John Hanna, The Role of Precedent in Judicial Decision, 2 Vill. L.Rev. 367, 367 (1957)). We therefore turn now to a discussion of the rule's origin and its applicability to determine if it was originally erroneous.

II. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE CORROBORATION RULE

A. Development of the Corroboration Rule in England and the United States

¶ 12 Courts adhere almost universally to the principle that "an extrajudicial confession,¹ by itself, is not sufficient to sustain a conviction of a crime." State v. Weldon, 6 Utah 2d 372, 373, 314 P.2d 353, 354 (1957) (citing R.T.K., Annotation, Corroboration of Confession, 127 A.L.R. 1130 (1940); E.H. Schopler, Annotation, Corroboration of Extrajudicial Confession or Admission, 45 A.L.R.2d 1316 (1956)). Thus, a confession may not be admitted unless there is other corroborative evidence of the crime. See id. The purpose of this corroboration rule is to prevent innocent persons from being convicted when they falsely confess to committing "`a crime that was never committed or was committed by someone else.'" State v. Parker, 315 N.C. 222, 337 S.E.2d 487, 491 (1985) (quoting State v. Franklin, 308 N.C. 682, 304 S.E.2d 579, 586 (1983)); see also State v. Johnson, 821 P.2d 1150, 1162 (Utah 1991)

(describing the corpus delicti rule "as a `safeguard against convicting the innocent on the strength of false confessions'") (quoting Weldon, 6 Utah 2d at 373,

314 P.2d at 354).

¶ 13 Although the exact origin of the corpus delicti rule is unknown, many historians attribute the rule's development to a seventeenth century case, wherein a defendant was executed after he falsely confessed to murdering a man. Thomas A. Mullen, Rule Without Reason: Requiring Independent Proof of the Corpus Delicti as a Condition of Admitting an Extrajudicial Confession, 27 U.S.F. L.Rev. 385, 399-400 (1993) (citing Perry's Case, 14 How. St. Tr. 1311 (1660)). In Perry's Case, when the supposed victim disappeared one evening, and his hat was found "hacked and bloody," it was suspected that the defendant had murdered him. Note, Proof of the Corpus Delicti Aliunde the Defendant's Confession, 103 U. Pa. L.Rev. 638, 638 (1955). Following questioning, the defendant confessed that he had killed the "victim," and he also implicated his brother and mother in the crime. Id. at 638-39. All three were "tried, convicted, and executed." Id. at 639. Several years later, however, the "victim" appeared alive. Id. "This and similar cases led the British courts to question the sufficiency of confessions to prove that a crime had been committed." Id. In response to this concern, British courts developed a corroboration rule to help prevent such events from recurring.

¶ 14 At its inception, British courts applied this corroboration rule only to murder and bigamy cases. Id. at 640. Courts in the United States, however, extended the rule to apply to most crimes. Id. at 641. As early as 1909, this court required corroborative evidence, independent of a defendant's confession, in all criminal trials. State v. Wells, 35 Utah 400, 409, 100 P. 681, 684 (1909), overruled on other grounds, State v. Crank, 105 Utah 332, 335, 142 P.2d 178, 188 (1943); see also Weldon, 6 Utah 2d at 375,

314 P.2d at 355 (stating that the corroboration rule "applie[s] to all crimes"). Thus, in the United States the rule has been extended well beyond its initial conception in England.

B. The Orthodox Version of the Corroboration Rule: The Corpus Delicti Rule

¶ 15 The corroboration rule is most "often termed the `corpus delicti' rule because the orthodox version of the rule requires corroboration of the corpus delicti, or body of the crime." Ayling, supra, at 1124 n. 9. Here, the term "corpus delicti" means "evidence that the [charged] crime was committed." Johnson, 821 P.2d at 1162 n. 8 (...