Supreme Court of Virginia· 9/22/1989

Watkins v. Commonwealth

Citations

385 S.E.2d 50
238 Va. 341
6 Va. Law Rep. 472
1989 Va. LEXIS 132

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

holding “that there must be independent corroboration of ... the facts constituting the corpus delicti ”
holding \that there must be independent corroboration of... the facts constituting the corpus delicti \
holding that “where the court has made a threshold determination that sufficient corroboration of the corpus delicti has been adduced, independent of a confession, to permit the confession to go to the jury, an instruction submitting the issue of corroboration to the jury is inappropriate”
holding defendant failed to make prima facie fair cross-section claim where he failed to demonstrate that the jury - 18 - selection process systematically excluded members of his minority race from venires in that jurisdiction
“[W]here, as here, the accused has fully confessed the crime, only slight corroborative evidence is necessary to establish the corpus delicti.” (emphasis in original)
“[A]n accused cannot be convicted solely on his uncorroborated extrajudicial admission or confession.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Russell, Whiting

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Cited by

41 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

42 cases in this archive are cited by this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

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