Read the case provided to answer these questions:

1. Change the facts of the case. Create two factual examples of how corpus delicti could be proven for the more serious PCSA crime at issue in the case.

2. Do you or someone you know believe that corpus delicti serves an important purpose, or should confessions be allowed to stand alone as evidence to support convictions?

Does a Defendant's Confession of a Sex Crime Have to Be Supported by Other Evidence for Conviction? Illinois v. Lara (Ill. App. 1st Dist. 2011)

The Case A jury found the defendant, Jason Lara, guilty of two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault (PCSA) for inserting his finger into the vagina of an eight-year-old girl, J.O. On appeal, Jason argues that the State failed to prove the corpus delicti of the offense, because the State failed to present any evidence corroborating Jason's confession that he put his finger inside J.O. We agree....

Augustina P. had two children, J.O. and C.A. Augustina, who worked many evenings, often asked her friend, Shelley Lara, to look after her two children. Sometimes J.O. and C.A. slept at Shelley's home, where Shelley's son, Jason, also slept. Augustina began dating John Cordero after she separated from her husband, Phillip A., who was C.A.'s father.

On February 11, 2005, Jason told Cordero that once, when Phillip A. came to visit, Jason heard sounds of licking and sucking coming from a room where Phillip A. and J.O. were alone together. On February 17, 2005, Cordero and Augustina went out for a few drinks after Augustina got off work. Cordero told Augustina what Jason had said. The following morning, Augustina asked Cordero to talk to J.O. about the matter. Augustina's sister brought J.O. and C.A. to Cordero's home, before school. Cordero took J.O. into a bedroom and asked her if Phillip had ever touched her in a way that made her uncomfortable. J.O. said, "Yes, he has but it wasn't Phillip." Instead, J.O. said Jason had touched her inappropriately.

Augustina came into the bedroom to talk to J.O., and again J.O. said Jason, not Phillip, had touched her "private part." Augustina called Shelley and the police. Shelley and Jason came to Cordero's home. Police officers arrested Jason. Carey Kato, a forensic interviewer working for the Children's Advocacy Center, interviewed J.O. later that day. J.O. said that on two occasions about a month earlier, Jason had touched her "private part." She pointed to her vagina. J.O. explained that when she and her sister slept at Shelley's home, they would sleep on the floor next to the bed in the living room where Jason slept. One night she woke up to find her pants and underpants pulled down to her knees, and Jason's hand resting on her "private part." A few days later, when she came back to lie on the floor after going to the bathroom late at night, Jason put his hand inside her panties and on her vagina. Kato specifically asked whether Jason put his hand inside her, and J.O. said it was outside her vagina on both occasions. Jason signed a statement about the incident later that day. He admitted that in January 2005, on two separate occasions, he put his hand in J.O.'s pants and touched her vagina. According to the written statement, he said that on the first occasion, while J.O. slept, he put his finger into her vagina as far as his fingernail, and then J.O. woke up. The second time J.O. was already awake when he put his finger into her vagina, with the finger again entering as far as the fingernail....[Jason was indicted on several charges and subsequently went to trial. J.O. testified at trial that Jason touched her vagina on two occasions but she didn't testify that his finger entered her. Jason testified that he never touched J.O. inappropriately, contrary to his earlier admission.]

Corpus Delicti Next, Jason asks us to reduce his convictions from PCSA to [aggravated sexual assault] ACSA. To prove that Jason committed ACSA, the State needed to show that Jason was over 17 years old and J.O. was under 13 years old when Jason committed an act of sexual conduct on J.O. The statutory definition of "sexual conduct" includes contact between a defendant's finger and the victim's vagina for the purpose of sexual gratification. To prove PCSA, the State needed to prove the facts that prove ACSA, plus "sexual penetration," which the statute defines to include "any intrusion, however slight, of any part of the body of one person into the sex organ of another person"....

Illinois has long followed the rule that "proof of the corpus delicti may not rest exclusively on a defendant's extrajudicial confession, admission, or other statement."....

The corroboration rule has changed very little since our supreme court applied it in [1856]....

[In 1982, our Supreme Court] explained:

The corroboration rule requires that the corpus delicti be proved by some evidence aliunde admission of a defendant. *** The corroboration rule was the result of an historical mistrust of extrajudicial confessions. Two reasons for this mistrust have commonly been cited: confessions are unreliable if coerced; and, for various psychological reasons persons 'confess' to crimes that either have never occurred or for which they are not legally responsible.

...we find sufficient corroboration for Jason's confession that he committed ACSA when he touched J.O.'s vagina, but we find no corroboration for the single element, sexual penetration, that distinguishes ACSA from PCSA....

Augustina, Cordero and J.O. presented no evidence that any part of Jason's body intruded into J.O.'s vagina. Paraday [a police detective who investigated the case] admitted that in the forensic interview, in response to a direct question about the extent of the contact, J.O. said that Jason's hand stayed outside her vagina in both incidents. The only evidence of penetration came from the written statement Jason signed....

Accordingly, we reverse both convictions for PCSA and vacate Jason's sentences on those charges. [Jason's convictions on the (ASCA) charges that did not require penetration were upheld and the case was remanded for sentencing.]