Today, in United States v. Niebla-Torres, --- F.3d ---, Case No. 15-10261 (9th Cir. 2017), the Ninth Circuit affirmed the defendant's conviction for conspiracy to possess
with intent to distribute marijuana.
Agents arrested the defendant on a remote mountain in Arizona. He confessed to being a scout, helping others smuggle what he believed was marijuana. However, no marijuana was found at the location. Nor did agents find anyone actually smuggling marijuana. The conviction, therefore, was based mostly on the defendant's video-taped confession.
The defendant argued the government
failed introduce sufficient evidence to corroborate his
confession under the corpus delicti doctrine. The corpus delicti doctrine requires that a conviction must
rest on more than a defendant’s uncorroborated confession.
The Ninth Circuit has a two-part test to
evaluate whether the government has met its burden under the
corpus delicti doctrine. First, the
government “must introduce sufficient evidence to establish
that the criminal conduct at the core of the offense has
occurred. Second, it must introduce independent evidence
tending to establish the trustworthiness of the admissions,
unless the confession is, by virtue of special circumstances,
inherently reliable.”
On the facts here -- e.g., the location of his arrest and his demeanor during the confession -- both the district court and Ninth Circuit found the government met its burden under both prongs of the test.
If you have a case where the only real evidence is your client's confession, this opinion is must read.
