Brown v. Commonwealth

Citations

• 89 Va. 379
• 16 S.E. 250
• 1892 Va. LEXIS 109

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal Proceedings—Arson—Corpus delicti.—There should be no conviction where the corpus delicti is not proved with particular clearness and certainty.</p> <p>2. Idem—Case at bar.—-Where all the evidence is purely circumstantial, and the circumstances themselves are not satisfactorily proved, and are insufficient to establish clearly that the fire was of incendiary origin, and, if so, then to prove the guilt of the accused, though at third trial one detective testified to admissions made to him about the time of the fire which he never mentioned at either of the previous trials, though he was a witness at both, and ' another detective testified to admissions made to him in jail since the second trial, when he was kept in the accused’s cell for several days and nights, ostensibly as a murderer, and acknowledging his guilt to the accused—</p> <p>Held :</p> <p>The admissions being susceptible of an innocent construction, and the testimony of the detectives being replete with suspicion, the verdict of guilty should be set aside as unwarranted.</p>