<p>
Confessions.
</p> <p>In a prosecution for an attempt to murder, the respondent’s unsupported confession is not sufficient evidence of the corpas delicti.</p>
Key passage — most relied on by later courts
““An unsupported confession should not be received as sufficient evidence of the cor pits delicti.””
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Conviction set aside and prisoner discharged · Decided 1882-10-20
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently October 1940
2 federal appellate · 10 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
¶1The respondent was convicted of an attempt to murder one Allen by administering morphine to him. The evidence that any such offence was committed was the respondent’s admission. The medical and other evidence in the case tended very strongly to show that the admission was unfounded. The defendant on the trial' explained his story by saying that he invented it to get up a sensation by way of advertisement for a firm of sensational doctors. The explanation was extraordinary, but on the evidence it is more credible than the confession on which respondent was convicted.
¶2An unsupported confession should not be received as sufficient evidence of the- corpus delicti. People v. Hennessey15 Wend. 147; Stringfellow v. State26 Miss. 157; States. Guild 5 Halsted 163. The respondent on the case submitted to the jury was entitled to an acquittal, and the conviction must be set aside and a discharge ordered
