Lemons v. State

Melvin, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On May 9, 1980, the grand jury of the City of Baltimore filed in the Criminal Court of Baltimore indictment no. 18013002, charging the appellant, Marvin Cecil Lemons, with the first degree murder of one Debbie Kelly "in the month of October”, 1968. Prior to trial, the indictment was amended, without objection, to allege the date of the murder as being November 4, 1971. During the trial, it was again amended (this time over appellant’s objection) to allege the date of the murder as being December 14, 1969.

On June 25,1980, a jury found the appellant guilty of first degree murder and he was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. In this appeal he argues, among other things, that "the evidence adduced at trial was not sufficient to support appellant’s conviction as there was not adequate evidence of corpus delicti independent of appellant’s statements.” Because we agree with this contention, the judgment of conviction must be reversed. The Law It is well established in this State and the vast majority of jurisdictions elsewhere that a defendant’s extrajudicial confession standing alone is, as a matter of law, insufficient to support a criminal conviction. To warrant a conviction, such a confession must be accompanied — or as the rule is ⁴⁶⁹ typically phrased, "corroborated” — by some independent evidence.

The reason beneath this long-standing rule is that such a requirement is necessary to "protect the administration of the criminal laws against errors based upon untrue confessions alone.” Wood v. State, 192 Md. 643, 649 , 65 A.2d 316 (1949). More particularly, as Judge Moylan observed on behalf of this Court, "The thrust of the principle is to prevent mentally unstable persons from confessing to, and being convicted of, crimes that never occurred.” Borza v. State, 25 Md. App. 391, 403 , 335 A.2d 142 , cert. denied, 275 Md. 746 (1975). That this concern is real and not frivolous is attested to by psychology and history alike. See Note, Proof of the Corpus Delicti Aliunde the Defendant’s Confession, 103 U. Pa.

L. Rev. 638 (1955). Hence, the so-called "corroboration rule” does not rest on idle musings about theorized possibilities but is founded upon sound principle grounded on fact. Having stated the rule, identified its purpose and confirmed its propriety, we are nonetheless unprepared to apply it to the facts of the present case until we flesh out more precisely just what the corroboration rule requires. Given that a confession must be accompanied by other evidence, we must determine what is demanded of that other evidence both in terms of quality and quantity.

In terms of quality, it is first of all clear, by the very statement of the rule, that this required additional evidence must be, in some sense, "corroborative.” As to what is intended by the word "corroborative,” in this context, two views have been expressed. The view adhered to by a minority of jurisdictions is that any evidence that tends to fortify the truth of the confession is "corroborative.” On the other hand, according to the overwhelming majority of authority, to be "corroborative,” in the sense intended by the rule, the evidence apart from the confession must fortify the truth of the confession in a particular way; i.e., it must relate to the corpus delicti. Annot., 45 A.L.R.2d 1316 , 1327-29 (1956); VII J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2071 (Chadbourn rev. 1978); Perkins, The Corpus Delicti of Murder, 48 Va. L. Rev. 173 ⁴⁷⁰ (1962); McCormick on Evidence, § 158 (Cleary, 2nd Ed. 1972).

As for Maryland, it is reasonably clear that at an early date the Court of Appeals adopted what is now referred to as the majority view. See Markley v. State, 173 Md. 309 , 196 A. 95 (1938); Weller v. State, 150 Md. 278 , 132 A. 624 (1926). In both Weller and Markley , the Court spoke of the need for independent evidence of the corpus delicti and, indeed, relied on such evidence in sustaining the convictions there appealed. Subsequently, however, a statement has found its way into the dicta of a number of Maryland cases, both from this Court and the Court of Appeals, that has generated some confusion.

That statement, as it was phrased in its first Maryland appearance, is as follows: "[Circumstances corroborating a confession need not independently establish the truth of the corpus delicti at all, either beyond a reasonable doubt or by a preponderance of proof, but any such circumstances will serve which in the judge’s opinion go to fortify the truth of the confession.” Wood v. State, 192 Md. at 650 (emphasis supplied) (citations omitted). The State in the present case seems to read this quotation as standing for the proposition that Maryland has adopted the minority view of the corroboration rule; 1 admittedly, read in isolation, this statement would seem to be the epitome of that view. Nevertheless, viewing this statement in the context of the cases in which it appears and in light of other Maryland cases on the subject, we cannot accept the reading suggested by the State. The statement found in Wood was adopted by the Court of Appeals from a seasoned opinion of Judge Learned Hand.

Viewing that statement in its original context is instructive of the thought intended: ⁴⁷¹ "The corroboration must touch the corpus delicti in the sense of the injury against whose occurrence the law is directed; in this case, an agreement to attack or set upon a vessel. Whether it must be enough to establish the fact independently and without the confession is not quite settled. Not only does this seem to have been supposed in some cases, but that the jury must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the corpus delicti without using the confessions, before they may consider the confessions at all. Gray v. Com., 101 Pa. 380 , 47 Am.

Rep. 733 ; State v. Laliyer, 4 Minn. 368 ( Gil. 277 ); Lambright v. State, 34 Fla. 564 , 16 South. 582 ; Pitts v. State, 43 Miss. 472 . But such is not the more general rule, which we are free to follow, and under which any corroborating circumstances will serve which in the judge’s opinion go to fortify the truth of the confession. Independently they need not establish the truth of the corpus delicti at all, neither beyond a reasonable doubt nor by a preponderance of proof.” Daeche v. United States, 250 F. 566, 571 (2d Cir. 1918) (emphasis added) (citations omitted). Thus viewed, it is apparent that the portion of the above quotation that has been borrowed by the Maryland cases, such as Wood, supra, refers only to the quantity and not the quality of the corroborative evidence required.

That is, it merely stands for the unremarkable proposition that corroborative evidence — to be quantitatively sufficient — need not, by itself, constitute full proof of the corpus delicti by any measure. It cannot be read more broadly to imply that the evidence apart from the confession — to be deemed "corroborative” as a qualitative matter — is not required to at least "touch” the corpus delicti, for that reading is specifically foreclosed by Judge Hand’s prefatory declaration to the contrary. That the Maryland cases attach the same restrictive meaning to the portion of the statement borrowed from Judge Hand’s opinion in Daeche is evidenced in part by the ⁴⁷² fact that the vast majority of the Maryland cases involving the corroboration rule, including a number of cases that paraphrase the Daeche statement, specifically refer to the rule as requiring "independent evidence of the corpus delicti.”See e.g., Hadder v. State, 238 Md. 341, 352-353 , 209 A.2d 70 (1965); Koprivich v. State, 1 Md. App. 147, 154 , 228 A.2d 476 (1967). Moreover, the State has referred us to no Maryland case and our research has not revealed any in which a conviction was affirmed in the absence of some evidence of the corpus delicti aside from the confession.

Finally, we think it was made most clear that Maryland continues to adhere to the majority view when, in Johnson v. State, 238 Md. 140, 144 , 207 A.2d 643 (1965), the Court of Appeals observed: "To state that a confession must be 'corroborated’ is misleading. What we have consistently held is that an extrajudicial confession of guilt by a person accused of crime, unsupported by other evidence, is insufficient to warrant a conviction, but that if there is evidence, independent of the confession, which relates to and tends to establish the corpus delicti, the conviction is justified.” (Emphasis added) (Citations omitted). For these reasons, we conclude that in Maryland, as in the majority of other jurisdictions, evidence is only "corroborative,” in the sense intended by the corroboration rule, if it touches or concerns the corpus delicti and — in that way — fortifies the truth of the accompanying confession. Evidence that may fortify the confession without relation to the corpus delicti will not be deemed "corroborative.” In addition to being "corroborative,” in the sense of evidencing the corpus delicti to some extent, the evidence that is required to accompany an accused’s confession must also be "independent” of that confession.

See, e.g. Jones v. State, 188 Md. 263 , 52 A.2d 484 (1947); Franklin v. State, 8 Md. App. 134, 140 , 258 A.2d 767 (1969), cert. denied, 257 Md. 733 (1970). Stated otherwise, one portion of a confession cannot be used to corroborate another portion, even if the ⁴⁷³ portion proposed for such use does tend to establish the corpus delicti. A confession simply cannot fortify its own truth.

Likewise, multiple confessions of a given accused cannot be viewed as corroborative of one another, for the same danger of untruth that is present in one is present in all. See Williams v. State, 214 Md. 143 , 132 A.2d 605 (1957). Given that an extrajudicial confession must be corroborated by independent evidence of the corpus delicti, it remains to be determined in what quantity the independent evidence will have to be adduced to sustain a conviction. As already alluded to, "it is not necessary that the evidence independent of the confession be full and complete or that it establish the truth of the corpus delicti either beyond a reasonable doubt or by a preponderance of proof.” Cooper v. State, 220 Md. 183, 190 , 152 A.2d 120 1959 ); see Wood, supra.

Indeed, in some cases, such evidence might be sufficient though "small in amount.” Bradbury v. State, 233 Md. 421, 425 , 197 A.2d 126 (1964). Ultimately, the necessary quantum of independent proof of corpus delicti is dependent upon the facts of the particular case, Cooper, supra at 191 , Franklin, 8 Md. App. at 140 , and such evidence is said to be, "sufficient if, when considered in connection with the confession, it satisfies the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the offense was committed and that the defendant committed it.” Jones v. State, 188 Md. at 271-272 (emphasis added). More particularly, the Court in Jones went on to articulate the two elements of the corpus delicti of homicide to which the independent evidence must relate: "In a homicide case the proof of the corpus delicti is sufficient if it establishes the fact that the person for whose death the prosecution was instituted is dead, and that the death occurred under circumstances which indicate that it was caused criminally by someone.” Id. at 272 . Distilling these statements to their essence, and filtering that through the Jackson v. Virginia 2 standard for testing ⁴⁷⁴ sufficiency of the evidence, the inquiry on appeal as to whether there is adequate independent evidence of the corpus delicti to corroborate a confession to such an extent as to support a murder conviction amounts to the following: considering the independent evidence of the corpus delicti, together with the confession and the circumstances of the particular case, and viewing all of that in a light most favorable to the prosecution, could any rational trier of fact conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the alleged victim is dead and that such victim was murdered by the accused?

The Present Case Eva Appelgate, called as a State witness, testified that she had known the appellant since 1966. In July of 1971 she "started living with him as man and wife” at 1713 Hollins Street in Baltimore. She said that in the year 1974 she had a conversation with appellant "regarding a person known as Debbie. "Appellant told her he knew "Debbie” in the year 1970” at Broadway and Eastern at the Coffee Pot.” He further told her that he brought Debbie home and "knocked her in the head — with a baseball bat”; that he then "scalped her and took her hair out”; that he "took a knife and cut all the flesh off her bones”; that he did this on the "kitchen table”; that he flushed Debbie’s flesh "down the commode” and "the commode stopped up”; that he "took a can of Drano and poured it down the commode” but that "didn’t work” and he "had to take the commode up from the floor.” Appelgate further testified that appellant told her that "he took a saw and sawed her hands and everything - - on the kitchen table”; that "he took a plier and pulled the teeth out - - so she can’t be identified”; that he put the head "in the dog food bag he said and met the garbage truck and put it in there”; that he "took her eyes out too - - to keep her from being ⁴⁷⁵ identified”; and that he took the bones "to the cellar and took a hammer and broke them up”; and that he put "a dog food bag” containing the hands, feet, hair and bones "into a plastic garbage bag” and "met the garbage truck and put it in.” The record indicates that appellant had been taken into police custody on January 10 or January 11, 1979, on charges unrelated to the present case and that on January 13, 1979, Eva Appelgate related the 1974 conversation she had with the appellant to the police.

Eva Appelgate further testified that from the time she first knew appellant in 1966 until the time of his arrest "on January 10, 1979”, appellant was "on drugs”, which she described as "LSD, Sunshine, Purple Haze, Marijuana”, and that he also "drank vodka on weekends til I would have to take him to bed and put him in the bed myself because I was — I wouldn’t want to do anything with him when he was drinking.” She also said that appellant told her at the time of the 1974 conversation concerning "Debbie” that what he was telling her "was bad dreams to him - - And he laughed when he was telling me and he told me that it was only a joke, not to pay it no mind.” She and her children continued to live with him from July 1971 until he was arrested in January 1979: "He slept in my bed every night with his head on my shoulder right before he was locked up.” She also said that on November 4,1971 [the date alleged in the indictment as the date of the murder] she saw no evidence "of a dismembered body” in the house. Linda Ciarpello, Eva Appelgate’s daughter, was also called as a State witness. She testified that sometime in January 1979, before his arrest, she was playing cards with him at her house in the presence of her sister-in-law and mother. At that time appellant told her that "my mother deserved a better person than him”; that "he had done a lot of wrong and that he had to pay for it.” She said she told him that she "couldn’t think that he had done that much wrong” and asked him "if he killed anyone.” Appellant replied that ⁴⁷⁶ "he had killed a woman 3 ... in one of the bedrooms” and "taken her and chopped the bones up in the cellar and thrown them away in the trash.” She asked him why he didn’t see a psychiatrist and "he said he was afraid because if the police would find out, they would keep him - - He said he was afraid.

He had wanted to turn himself in but he didn’t have the courage. Somebody had to do it for him.” At the time of this conversation, appellant was "high — Either he had been drinking or smoking marijuana.” Ciarpello further testified that she had known appellant since 1966 and that she became familiar with his drug habits in 1971; that he took "Purple Haze, LSD, Marijuana”; and that after 1975 he was not taking Purple Haze or LSD "but he smoked marijuana off and on.” Detective Steve Danko of the Baltimore City Police Department testified that after a conversation with Eva Appelgate on January 13, 1979, he spoke with appellant at police headquarters and that after waiving his Miranda rights, appellant voluntarily confessed to him that he had killed Debbie Kelly. In a written statement, in question and answer form, appellant said that on "4 November ’71,” he took her home with him from the White Coffee Pot where he was working with her at the time. "It was raining.

She went to bed with me and we had sex and she went to sleep. I got mad about something and beat her in the head with a club. The club broke, hit me between the eyes. I beat her up and had sex with her after she was dead.

I stabbed her with butcher knives. Afterwards, I cut her up and disposed of her the same way. I like the thrill of cold sex and sucking the blood.” Appellant further said in the statement: "I know something is wrong with me. I think death and ghosts and sometimes it’s all clearer to me.

Other times these things seem as though they are not so clear.” ⁴⁷⁷ In addition to this written statement, the State was allowed to introduce into evidence a number of drawings made by appellant that Detective Danko had obtained from Eva Appelgate. These drawings, most of which Eva Appelgate said she saw him make, were for the most part of nude women, some of them headless or with a large knife or sword inserted in the body. One such drawing was dated October 23,1977; another, dated November 5,1969, depicted a nude man with a club in his hand standing over a nude woman lying on a couch, and was captioned: "Welcome to the Club!”. The State was also allowed to introduce into evidence a page from a funeral register containing the names of the pall bearers at the funeral of appellant’s father in 1976.

Above the list of pall bearers, appellant had written "Death of Death” and under that caption the following: "1970 Debie Kelly Balt.” 4 On February 8, 1979, Detective Danko again questioned the appellant at police headquarters. Appellant reiterated the substance of his January 13th statement. During the course of the interview he was asked if he knew of any motive for the murder. His answer was, "Only hallucinations, hallucinating moments, maybe that’s something I dream up.” He was then asked, "Does your drawings depict some of these acts?” His answer was, "Possible, yes.

Thoughts, thoughts on paper, yes. But as far as me, I don’t know, it’s pointing direct to my feelings, I don’t know. I don’t understand my own drawings sometimes — I can go and say and get it in my mind that it did happen. It was no bad dreams, that it did happen.” (Emphasis added). 5 ⁴⁷⁸ The only other witness called by the State in its case in chief was Pete Ganer, who was the manager of the White Coffee Pot at Eastern Avenue and Broadway from sometime before 1967 until 1980.

He testified that Debbie Kelly worked for him there as a waitress "for a couple of months, maybe a little longer” sometime in "1969 or 1970.” He said the appellant also worked for the White Coffee Pot chain as a "relief man,” sometimes working for him at Eastern Avenue and Broadway and sometimes at other White Coffee Pot locations. Ganer said he "had no problem” with appellant. "He was doing his job as far as I am concerned.” He described Debbie Kelly, however, as "the type of a girl that flirted a lot” and "when they happened for those two to work together, she spent more time back in the kitchen than up front taking care of the customers.” Because the White Coffee Pot has a policy "that a boyfriend and girlfriend — are not supposed to work together,” Ganer said he informed Debbie of that policy and she said "she would then have a talk with Marvin.” Thereafter, Debbie did not return to work and he heard nothing further about her until 1979 when he "was approached and they told me that she was missing.” He said she was "a liar” and he was "not surprised” when she did not return to work. ⁴⁷⁹ Three witnesses were called by the defense. The first witness was Dr. Lawrence Donner, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, with a degree in Clinical Psychology and the title of Chief Psychologist, Division of Adult Ambulatory Care, Institute of Psychiatry.

He testified that he had examined the appellant on January 9,1980 for approximately six hours. He said, "The major difficulty Marvin seemed to show in interview information was reality testing. He had difficulty distinguishing between fantasies and real life experiences. It appeared to the examiner he was making heavy use of confabulation, that is the spontaneous invention of imaginary experiences to fill memory gaps without conscious intent to deceive.

Throughout this session, he maintained a candid manner with the complete absence of any hostility or resentment.” Dr. Donner’s diagnosis of appellant was as follows: "On the basis of the history, my psychological testing, my behavioral observation, I made a diagnosis of schizophrenic reaction, chronic undifferentiated type, along with mild to moderate organic brain syndrome, secondary to alcohol and drug abuse.” On cross-examination, Dr. Donner stated that at the time he examined the appellant in January 1980, as well as at the time appellant gave his statements to the police, the appellant was insane ("that he lacked substantial capacity to appreciate his behavior and he also lacks substantial capacity to conform to the requirement of the law”). He further said, "I’m also saying currently, he suffers from the same severe mental disorder and would be also in my opinion legally insane now, right this minute.” 6 Dr. Donner further said that in making his statements to the police, "He [appellant] was relating the experiences which he could not determine whether they were dreams, whether they were fantasies, whether they were images, what they were to the police. - - [H]e was not telling them he killed someone. He was telling them images he had. He was completely unsure of himself, whether he had actually done any of these things or not.” ⁴⁸⁰ The next witness for the defense was May Arrington, the payroll clerk for the White Coffee Pot Family Inns, Incorporated.

She testified that "Deborah L. Kelly” was employed by that company from April 1969 through December 14, 1969, except for the period July 20 through August 24 and one week in September and one week in October. She did not know the reason for her absences, but said it was "not unusual” for a relief girl to have "erratic hours,” indicating that "her hours were some weeks no hours, some weeks more than full time.” At the conclusion of May Arrington’s