Ballard v. State

RODOWSKY, Judge.

The issue here involves the rule requiring corroboration of the confession of an accused by some independent evidence of the corpus delicti We return to this well plowed ground because of the contentions of the petitioner, Robert Leslie Ballard, Jr. (Ballard), who stands convicted, inter alia, of felony murder in an attempted robbery. Ballard contends that corroboration of the corpus delicti in this case requires independent proof of the attempted robbery. As explained below, this contention greatly overstates the corroboration requirement.

Ballard was convicted by a jury in…