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plural corpora delicti. 1. : the substantial and fundamental fact (as, in murder, actual death and its occurrence as a result of criminal agency) necessary to prove the commission of a crime. 2. : the material substance (as the body of the victim of a murder) upon which a crime has been committed.
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A general criminal law principle known as the corpus delicti rule provides that a confession, standing alone, isn't enough for a conviction. With its design of preventing wrongful convictions, the rule implicitly acknowledges the phenomenon of false confessions.
Oct 9, 2000 · Corpus delicti, which means “the body of a crime,” is a common law doctrine that requires the state to prove that a crime has been committed before allowing a defendant’s extrajudicial ( i.e., out of court) confession to be admitted into evidence in a criminal trial.
Nov 21, 2011 · The term “corpus delicti” (sometimes spelled corpus delecti) means the body of the crime. Black’s Law Dictionary 310 (5 th ed. 1979); State v. Smith, 362 N.C. 583, 589 (2008). It refers to the substance of the crime, which ordinarily includes two elements: the act and the criminal agency of the act. Black’s at 310.
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May 29, 2018 · In law the term refers to proof establishing that a crime has occurred. Although misunderstanding about corpus delicti has been common, the term does not refer to a dead body. There is a corpus delicti of robbery, tax evasion, and, indeed, of every criminal offense.
An essential component of every criminal case, including criminal homicide, is corpus delicti. Corpus delicti is the substance of the crime at issue. The prosecution must prove corpus delicti beyond a reasonable doubt, with evidence other than a defendant’s confession (People v. Ochoa, 2011).
corpus delicti - The tangible proof that a crime occurred, like the body of a murder victim or the burnt remains of a building intentionally set on fire.
