State v. Lerch

The defendant was indicted and convicted of the murder of Michael Hanset. He appealed his conviction to the Court of Appeals setting out numerous assignments of error. The Court of Appeals affirmed. State v. Lerch, 63 Or App 707, 666 P2d 840 (1983).

The only evidence of the corpus delicti, independent of the defendant’s confession, was circumstantial. Our primary reason for allowing review was to consider the degree of proof required by ORS 136.425(1) to corroborate the defendant’s confession, when the evidence is solely circumstantial. The defendant raised this question in the trial court by…