People v. Alvarez

Opinion

BAXTER, J.

To convict an accused of a criminal offense, the prosecution must prove that (1) a crime actually occurred, and (2) the accused was the *1165perpetrator. Though no statute or constitutional principle requires it, California, like most American jurisdictions, has historically adhered to the rule that the first of these components—the corpus delicti or body of the crime— cannot be proved by exclusive reliance on the defendant’s extrajudicial statements.

In practice, the corpus delicti rule operates in several ways. The defendant may object to the admission of his extrajudicial…