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State v. Nieves4/15/2004
direct and circumstantial evidence supporting the other crimes charged to satisfy the corpus delicti rule. Id. at 173, 24, 61 P.3d at 467 (holding that "the confession was sufficiently corroborated to eliminate any concern that it could be untrue, and, thus, supported a 'reasonable inference' that the offense had occurred").
28 The Morgan court stressed that a confession could be corroborated when "independent evidence ... bolster[s] the confession itself and thereby prove[s] the offense 'through' the statements of the accused." Id. at 171, 18, 61 P.3d at 465 (quoting Smith v. United States, 348 U.S. 147, 156, 75 S.Ct. 194, 99 L.Ed. 192 (1954)). The court also relied on State v. Gillies, 135 Ariz. 500, 506, 662 P.2d 1007, 1013 (1983), a sexual assault case in which the court held that circumstantial evidence, including that the victim's underpants had been removed and that her **857 *444 shoe was found inside her pantyhose, was sufficient to establish the corpus delicti even absent any specific evidence of sexual assault. Id. at 172, 22, 61 P.3d at 466. These cases are distinguishable from this case because none of the direct or circumstantial corroborating evidence used to bolster the defendant's confession and establish the corpus delicti in these cases is present here. Had Nieves not confessed to the murder, no other evidence whatsoever exists to indicate that a crime was committed.
29 Further, to hold that an inexplicable death alone is sufficient to give rise to an inference that the death was the result of criminal conduct would render the corpus delicti rule without any practical effect in homicide cases. While the continued viability of the corpus delicti rule has been questioned of late, [FN7] the rule has recently been applied by our supreme court in a homicide case. See Hall, 204 Ariz. at 453-54, 43-47, 65 P.3d at 101-02 (holding that although the victim's body was never recovered, sufficient circumstantial evidence was admitted to establish the corpus delicti in a first-degree murder case). We do not have the authority to modify or disregard rulings of the Arizona Supreme Court. State v. Smyers, 207 Ariz. 314, 15 n. 4, 86 P.3d 370 (2004). Finally, the State does not argue that the rule should be reconsidered or that it is inapplicable to this case. Thus, we are compelled to conclude that the trial court erred by admitting Nieves's statements and by denying Nieves's motion for judgment of acquittal. We accordingly reverse Nieves's conviction and sentence for first-degree murder.
FN7. See, e.g., David A. Moran, In Defense of the Corpus Delicti Rule, 64 Ohio St. L.J. 817, 831-35 (2003) (arguing for retention of the corpus delicti rule but finding that both the federal government and a number of states have replaced the corpus delicti rule with a "trustworthiness" standard); R. Hawthorne Barrett, Corpus Delicti in DUI Cases, 49 S.C. L.Rev. 1115, 1128 (1998) (discussing use of the corpus delicti rule in South Carolina and noting that other states have modified or abandoned the corpus delicti rule entirely); 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, 385-86 (1993) (arguing that the corpus delicti rule does not serve its intended purposes); see also Catherine L. Goldenberg, Comment, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome as a Mask for Murder: Investigating and Prosecuting Infanticide, 28 Sw. U.L.Rev. 599, 612-22 (1999) (discussing "the difficulty courts have in applying the corpus delicti rule in cases where an unexplained infant death had originally been diagnosed as SIDS").
CONCLUSION
30 For the aforesaid reasons, we reverse Nieves's conviction and sentence, remanding the ca
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