Chapter 3 - §9. Exception—Child's corroboration of confession to sexual abuse

• Jurisdiction: United States

§9. Exception—Child's corroboration of confession to sexual abuse

A child victim's out-of-court statement may be admitted to corroborate a defendant's confession to sexual abuse of the child as an exception to the hearsay rule. Evid. C. §1228.

Federal ComparisonThe FREs have no comparable rule.

§9.1. Overview. In every criminal trial, the prosecution must prove the corpus delicti—that is, the fact of injury, loss, or harm and the existence of a criminal agency as its cause. People v. Alvarez (2002) 27 Cal.4th 1161, 1168. See "Corpus delicti," ch. 3-B, §5.4.1. Traditionally, one prong of the corpus delicti rule was that a defendant's out-of-court statements were inadmissible without some other independent evidence of the crime. Alvarez, 27 Cal.4th at 1170. Evid. C. §1228 was created to overcome the admissibility prong of the traditional corpus delicti rule. See Creutz v. Superior Ct. (4th Dist.1996) 49 Cal.App.4th 822, 829-30. Evid. C. §1228 provides a narrow exception to the corpus delicti rule by allowing the judge to consider certain statements by child victims only to aid the court's decision whether to allow the defendant's confession into evidence for jury consideration; the child's statement itself cannot be presented to the jury. See Creutz, 49 Cal.App.4th at 826. Only two published California cases have addressed...