The court affirmed the holding of State v. Sweat, 216 N.C. App. 321 (Oct. 18, 2011), that there was sufficient evidence of fellatio under the corpus delicti rule to support sex offense charges. The court clarified that the rule imposes different burdens on the State:

If there is independent proof of loss or injury, the State must show that the accused’s confession is supported by substantial independent evidence tending to establish its trustworthiness, including facts that tend to show the defendant had the opportunity to commit the crime. However, if there is no independent proof of loss or injury, there must be strong corroboration of essential facts and circumstances embraced in the defendant’s confession. Corroboration of insignificant facts or those unrelated to the commission of the crime will not suffice.

(quotations omitted). Here, because the substantive evidence of fellatio was defendant’s confession to four such acts, the State was required to strongly corroborate essential facts and circumstances embraced in the confession. Under the totality of the circumstances, the State made the requisite showing based on: the defendant’s opportunity to engage in the acts; the fact that the confession evidenced familiarity with corroborated details (such as the specific acts that occurred) likely to be known only by the perpetrator; the fact that the confession fit within the defendant’s pattern of sexual misconduct; and the victim’s extrajudicial statements to an investigator and a nurse. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the victim’s extrajudicial statements introduced to corroborate her testimony could not be used to corroborate his confession.

In this Wayne County case, defendant appealed his conviction for concealment of the death of a child who did not die of natural causes, arguing the State failed to satisfy the corpus delicti rule and error in permitting testimony that the child’s mother was convicted of second-degree murder. The Court of Appeals found no error and determined the corpus delicti rule was satisfied.  

In October of 2016, the mother and child in question moved into a house in Goldsboro with defendant and several other individuals. After the child disappeared, investigators interviewed defendant two times. In the second interview, defendant admitted overhearing the mother and another roommate discuss the child’s death and that they needed to dispose of the body. Defendant also described taking the mother and roommates to a house where they purchased methamphetamines, and events at the house that seemed to show the mother disposing of the body. Defendant told law enforcement “that he felt bad that he did not call for help, and one of his biggest mistakes was failing to tell people about [the child’s] death or report it to law enforcement.” Slip Op. at 7. At trial, text messages were admitted showing defendant and one of the roommates discussed covering up the child’s death. The prosecutor also asked a line of questions to one witness that revealed the mother was in prison for second-degree murder. Defendant moved for a mistrial several times and made a motion to dismiss, arguing insufficient evidence to satisfy the corpus delicti rule as the child’s body was never found, but the trial court denied the motions. 

Taking up defendant’s corpus delicti argument, the Court of Appeals first explained the rule’s requirement for corroborative evidence when an extrajudicial confession is the substantial evidence relied on to prove a crime. The court noted the N.C. Supreme Court adopted the “trustworthiness version” of the rule, meaning “the adequacy of corroborating proof is measured not by its tendency to establish the corpus delicti but by the extent to which it supports the trustworthiness of the admissions.” Slip Op. at 12-13, quoting State v. DeJesus, 265 N.C. App. 279 (2019). Having established the standard, the court looked to the substantial evidence supporting the trustworthiness of the confession and supporting each element of the crime charged, determining that the trial court properly denied the motion to dismiss. 

The court next considered defendant’s arguments that the testimony regarding the mother’s conviction for second-degree murder was (1) irrelevant under Rule of Evidence 401, (2) unfairly prejudicial under Rule of Evidence 403, and (3) constituted a violation of the Confrontation Clause of the U.S. and N.C. Constitutions. For (1), the court found relevancy “because it was relevant to whether [the child] was dead.” Id. at 21. Considering (2), the court found that since substantial evidence established the child died of unnatural causes, testimony regarding the mother’s conviction for murder was not unfairly prejudicial. Finally, for (3), the court noted that defendant’s argument that the mother’s guilty plea represented testimony was not directly addressed by North Carolina case law, but found an unpublished 4th Circuit per curiam opinion holding that a guilty plea was not testimonial evidence. The court also noted that no statement in the record seemed to alert the jury that the mother offered a guilty plea, and even if there was such a statement, it would represent harmless error based on the other evidence of the child’s death of unnatural causes. 

Chief Judge Stroud concurred in the result only by separate opinion, disagreeing with the analysis of admitting the testimony under Rules 401 and 403, but not considering the error prejudicial. 

In this child sexual assault case, there was substantial independent evidence to support the trustworthiness of the defendant’s extrajudicial confession that he engaged in vaginal intercourse with the victim on at least three occasions and therefore the corpus delicti rule was satisfied. The defendant challenged the trial court’s denial of his motion to dismiss two of his three statutory rape charges, which arose following the defendant’s confession that he had sex with the victim on three separate occasions. The defendant recognized that there was “confirmatory circumstance” to support one count of statutory rape because the victim became pregnant with the defendant’s child. However, he asserted that there was no evidence corroborating the two other charges other than his extrajudicial confession. The court disagreed, finding that there was substantial independent evidence establishing the trustworthiness of his confession that he engaged in vaginal intercourse with the victim on at least three separate occasions. Specifically, the victim’s pregnancy, together with evidence of the defendant’s opportunity to commit the crimes and the circumstances surrounding his statement to detectives provide sufficient corroboration “to engender a belief in the overall truth of Defendant’s confession.” The court began by noting that here there is no argument that the defendant’s confession was produced by deception or coercion. Additionally, in his confession he admitted that he engaged in intercourse with the victim on at least three occasions “that he could account for,” suggesting his appreciation and understanding of the importance of the accuracy of his statements. The trustworthiness of the confession was further reinforced by his ample opportunity to commit the crimes given that he was living in the victim’s home during the relevant period. Finally, and most significantly, the undisputed fact that the defendant fathered the victim’s child unequivocally corroborated his statement that he had engaged in vaginal intercourse with her. Thus, strong corroboration of the confession sufficiently establishes the trustworthiness of the concurrent statement regarding the number of instances that he had sexual intercourse with the victim.

In this child sexual assault case, the trial court erred by denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss charges of statutory sexual offense and indecent liberties with a child where the State failed to satisfy the corpus delecti rule. Here, the only substantive evidence was the defendant’s confession. Thus, the dispositive question is whether the confession was supported by substantial independent evidence tending to establish its trustworthiness, including facts tending to show that the defendant had the opportunity to commit the crime. In this case, the defendant had ample opportunity to commit the crimes; as the victim’s father, he often spent time alone with the victim at their home. Thus, the defendant’s opportunity corroborates the essential facts embedded in the confession. However, the confession did not corroborate any details related to the crimes likely to be known by the perpetrator. In out-of-court statements, the victim told others “Daddy put weiner in coochie.” However, the defendant denied that allegation throughout his confession. He confessed to other inappropriate sexual acts but did not confess to this specific activity. Also, the defendant’s confession did not fit within a pattern of sexual misconduct. Additionally, the confession was not corroborated by the victim’s extrajudicial statements. Although the defendant confessed to touching the victim inappropriately and watching pornography with her, he did not confess to raping her. Thus, the State failed to prove strong corroboration of essential facts and circumstances. The court noted that although the defendant spoke of watching pornography with the victim, investigators did not find pornography on his computer. The court thus determined that the State failed to satisfy the corpus delecti rule. It went on to reject the State’s argument that even without the defendant’s confession, there was sufficient evidence that the defendant was the perpetrator of the crimes.

In this case involving impaired and reckless driving, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that the State presented insufficient evidence to establish that he was driving the vehicle, in violation of the corpus delicti rule. The court found that the State presented substantial evidence to establish that the cause the car accident was criminal activity, specifically reckless or impaired driving. Among other things: three witnesses testified that immediately before the crash, the driver was speeding and driving in an unsafe manner on a curvy roadway; an officer testified that when he arrived at the scene, he detected alcohol from both occupants; and two motorists who stopped to assist saw the defendant exit the driver side of the vehicle seconds after the crash. 

(1) In a case involving two perpetrators, the trial court properly denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss a robbery charge, predicated on the corpus delicti rule. Although the defendant’s own statements constituted the only evidence that he participated in the crime, “there [wa]s no dispute that the robbery happened.” Evidence to that effect included “security footage, numerous eyewitnesses, and bullet holes and shell casings throughout the store.” The court concluded: “corpus delicti rule applies where the confession is the only evidence that the crime was committed; it does not apply where the confession is the only evidence that the defendant committed it.” The court continued, citing State v. Parker, 315 N.C. 222 (1985) for the rule that “ ‘the perpetrator of the crime’ is not an element of corpus delicti.” (2) The trial court properly denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss a conspiracy charge, also predicated on the corpus delicti rule. The court found that there was sufficient evidence corroborating the defendant’s confession. It noted that “the fact that two masked men entered the store at the same time, began shooting at employees at the same time, and then fled together in the same car, strongly indicates that the men had previously agreed to work together to commit a crime.” Also, “as part of his explanation for how he helped plan the robbery, [the defendant] provided details about the crime that had not been released to the public, further corroborating his involvement.” Finally, as noted by the Parker Court, “conspiracy is among a category of crimes for which a ‘strict application’ of the corpus delicti rule is disfavored because, by its nature, there will never be any tangible proof of the crime.”

The evidence was sufficient to sustain a juvenile’s adjudication as delinquent for driving with no operator’s license under the corpus delicti rule. The thirteen-year-old juvenile admitted that he drove the vehicle. Ample evidence, apart from this confession existed, including that the juvenile and his associates were the only people at the scene and that the vehicle was registered to the juvenile’s mother.

In an impaired driving case, there was sufficient evidence apart from the defendant’s extrajudicial confession to establish that he was driving the vehicle. When an officer arrived at the scene, the defendant was the only person in the vehicle and he was sitting in the driver's seat.