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Corpus delicti (Latin for "body of the crime"; plural: corpora delicti), in Western law, is the principle that a crime must be proved to have occurred before a person can be convicted of committing that crime.

For example, a person cannot be tried for larceny unless it can be proven that property has been stolen. Likewise, in order for a person to be tried for arson it must be proven that a criminal act resulted in the burning of a property. Black's Law Dictionary (6th ed.) defines "corpus delicti" as: "the fact of a crime having been actually committed".

In common law systems, the concept has its outgrowth in several principles. Many jurisdictions hold as a legal rule that a defendant's out-of-court confession, alone, is insufficient evidence to prove the defendant's guilt beyond reasonable doubt. A corollary to this rule is that an accused cannot be convicted solely upon the testimony of an accomplice. Some jurisdictions also hold that without first showing independent corroboration that a crime happened, the prosecution may not introduce evidence of the defendant's statement.

Requirements

In general, all corpus delicti requires at a minimum:

1. The occurrence of the specific injury; and
2. some criminal act as the source of the injury.

For example:

• Homicide: 1) An individual has died 2) as a result of action (or inaction) by another person.
• Larceny: 1) Property is missing 2) because it was stolen.

In essence corpus delicti of crimes refers to evidence that a violation of law occurred; no literal 'body' is needed.

Murder cases

When a person disappears and cannot be contacted, many police agencies initiate a missing person case. If, during the course of the investigation, detectives believe that they have been murdered, then a "body" of evidentiary items, including physical, demonstrative and testimonial evidence, must be obtained to establish that the missing person has indeed died, and that their death was by homicide, before a suspect can be charged with murder. The clearest evidence in these cases is the physical body of the deceased. However, in the event that a body is not present or has not yet been discovered, it is possible to prove a crime took place if sufficient circumstantial evidence is presented to prove the matter beyond a reasonable doubt. For example, the presence at a missing person's home of spilled human blood, identifiable as that person's, in sufficient quantity to indicate exsanguination, demonstrates—even in the absence of a corpse—that the possibility that no crime has occurred, and the missing person is merely missing, is not reasonably credible.

Misinterpretation

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The British serial killer John George Haigh destroyed the bodies of his victims with acid apparently because he thought that, in the absence of a corpse, murder could not be proven because there was no corpus delicti. Haigh had misinterpreted the Latin word corpus as a literal body rather than a figurative one. This had previously been the case, under Matthew Hale's Rule of "no body, no crime", but in the twentieth century, the law expanded to allow prosecution for murder solely on circumstantial evidence.

The sovereign citizen movement often uses this term during routine traffic stops. Sovereign citizens believe that traffic infractions are not crimes, and thus cannot be proven in a court of law.

See also

• Corroboration in Scots law
• Element (criminal law)
• Murder conviction without a body

References

1. See, e.g., Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 497 n.14, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963 (citing to corpus delicti rule and stating: "For the history and development of the corroboration requirement, see 7 Wigmore, Evidence , §§ 2070–2071; Note, Proof of the Corpus Delicti Aliunde the Defendant's Confession, 103 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 638–649 . For the present scope and application of the rule, see 2 Underhill, Criminal Evidence , §§ 402–403. For a comprehensive collection of cases, see Annot., 45 A. L. R.2d 1316 .")
2. B. Berg, Criminal Investigation, McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2007

External links

• The dictionary definition of corpus delicti at Wiktionary

• Criminal law
• Evidence law
• Legal rules with Latin names