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ent erring in his own favor made it not unreasonable for the Government to hold him to his word where it was to the Government's advantage. On the whole, the statement is one which should be carefully scrutinized in the light of the available independent evidence.

There has been considerable debate concerning the quantum of corroboration necessary to substantiate the existence of the crime charged. It is agreed that the corroborative evidence does not have to prove the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, or even by a preponderance, as long as there is substantial independent evidence that the offense has been committed, and the evidence as a whole proves beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant is guilty. Gregg v. United States, 113 F. 2d 687; Jordan v. United States, 60 F. 2d 4; Forte v. United States, supra; Daeche v. United States, supra. But cf. United States v. Fenwick, 177 F. 2d 488. In addition to differing views on the substantiality of specific independent evidence, the debate has centered largely about two questions: (1) whether corroboration is necessary for all elements of the offense established by admissions alone, compare Ercoli v. United States, supra, and Pines v. United States, supra, with Wynkoop v. United States, supra, and Pearlman v. United States, 10 F. 2d 460, and (2) whether it is sufficient if the corroboration merely fortifies the truth of the confession, without independently establishing the erime charged, compare Pearlman v. United States, supra, and Daeche v. United States, supra, with Pines v. United States, supra, and Forte v. United States, supra. We answer both in the affirmative. All elements of the offense must be established by independent evidence or corroborated admissions, but one available mode of corroboration is for the independent evidence to bolster the confession itself and thereby prove the offense "through" the statements of the accused. Cf. Parker v. State, 228 Ind. 1, 88 N. E. 2d 556.

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Under the above standard the Government may provide the necessary corroboration by introducing substantial evidence, apart from petitioner's admissions, tending to show that petitioner willfully understated his taxable income. This may be accomplished by substantiating the opening net worth directly, since that figure, taken together with the remainder of the net worth computation, amply establishes a consistent understatement by petitioner of his taxable income; and from this the jury could infer willfulness. Two significant items of evidence tend to show that petitioner owned no assets at the starting point in excess of those attributed to him in the Government's statement. First, a Government official testified that petitioner had filed no income tax returns in the years 1936 through 1939, nontaxable returns for 1940 and 1942, a nonassessable return for 1943, a refundable return for 1944, and a taxable return for 1941. Second, the testimony of a Government agent, touching upon the economic activities of the petitioner in the years immediately preceding the prosecution period, disclosed that prior to 1941 petitioner had been employed as a manager of a racing-news service; that from 1941 to 1945 he worked in a package store for $40 a week; and that for a short time during this latter period his wife worked as a hairdresser. The agent's testimony, however, was based solely on the extrajudicial statements of the petitioner, and under the standard we have adopted these admissions must be corroborated by substantial independent evidence. The

They were made to officials after the offense had been committed. It may be questioned, though, whether these admissions were as basic to the Government's case as the statements concerning opening net worth, and whether they should therefore be exempted from the requirement of corroboration. But where a fact is sufficiently important that the Government adduces extrajudicial statements of the accused bearing on its existence, and then relies on its existence to sustain the defendant's conviction, there is need for corroboration. Cf. United States v. Kertess, supra, at 930.

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tax returns adequately corroborate petitioner's statements as to his financial history, and we hold that the two together corroborate the opening net worth. The jury could find from this evidence that petitioner's resources prior to the prosecution years were such that he could not have amassed a greater store of wealth than the amount credited to him in the Government's net worth statement. This proof is buttressed somewhat by independent evidence that petitioner had bought a modest home in 1943 for $9,600, paying less than one-third in cash and the balance in installments, and by the fact that petitioner's wife, who held the bulk of the family's assets in her name, was a housewife through almost all of the preprosecution years with no significant independent sources of income.

But substantiating the opening net worth is just one method of corroborating these extrajudicial statements. Petitioner's admissions may also be corroborated by an entirely different line of proof-by independent evidence concerning petitioner's conduct during the prosecution period, which tends to establish the crime of tax evasion without resort to the net worth computations. The Government's evidence showed that coincident with petitioner's opening of the racing-news service, in which he kept no records, petitioner and his wife opened 9 new bank accounts, making their over-all total 14 accounts in 12 banks; that the money in these accounts, which amounted to only $8,000 at the beginning of the prosecution period, varied between $42,000 and $80,000 during the prosecution years; that brokerage accounts, opened by petitioner and his wife in 1947 and 1948 respectively, were worth $9,000 in 1947 and over $41,000 in 1948 and 1949; that petitioner and his wife made new investments in realty during the prosecution period, about $2,000 in 1946, over $14,000 in 1948, and $35,000 in 1949; that other substantial expenditures were made during the

147

Opinion of the Court.

prosecution years, $3,750 in U. S. Savings Bonds in 1946, a total investment of $4,768 in new cars in 1947 and 1948, and a $37,000 annuity payment and $3,750 mink coat in 1949. During these same years petitioner's declared income exceeded his living expenses by less than $3,000. These substantial expenditures, savings and investments might not, of themselves, suffice to support a conviction of tax evasion without evidence of a starting point indicating a lack of funds from which these payments might have come. But this conduct does corroborate the net worth statement by tending to show that the petitioner was understating his income during the prosecution years. We cannot say that there is so little relation between expenditures and income that the Government's proof of expenditures far in excess of reported income, coupled with proof of a business producing unrecorded amounts of income, fails to corroborate the charge that petitioner's earnings during the prosecution years exceeded his declared income.

We hold that under either of these two lines of proof sufficient corroboration was shown to permit the case to go to the jury. The circumstances leading up to petitioner's statement, and the failure of the facts shown therein to mesh with the other evidence adduced by the Government, imposed on the trial judge and the reviewing courts a duty of careful scrutiny. Nevertheless, the independent evidence was strong enough, we believe, to overcome these indicia of unreliability, and we accordingly

Affirm.

Syllabus.

348 U.S.

UNITED STATES v. CALDERON.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT.

No. 25. Argued October 21, 1954. Decided December 6, 1954.

Respondent was convicted under § 145 of the Internal Revenue Code of willful attempts to evade federal income taxes for 1946 through 1949. The Government relied primarily upon a "net worth" computation. (See Holland v. United States, ante, p. 121.) As to the "cash on hand" in the opening net worth computation, the Government credited respondent with $500 on the basis of oral and written extrajudicial statements made by respondent. Contending that independent evidence of the corpus delicti was lacking, respondent challenged the validity of his conviction. Held: The conviction is affirmed. Pp. 161-169.

(a) The jury could have concluded, from the evidence, that respondent's oral statement as to the $500 referred to his total cash on hand at the starting point. Pp. 162-163.

(b) Respondent's signed statement as to the amount of "cash on hand" was not inadmissible as a matter of law; the weight to be given it was for the jury to determine in the light of all the circumstances. P. 163.

(c) Where the circumstances surrounding a defendant's admissions cast doubt on their reliability, the trial judge and reviewing courts should exercise great care in determining whether the admissions were corroborated. Pp. 163–164.

(d) When a defendant's motion for acquittal has been overruled and he introduces evidence in his own behalf, the reviewing courts may seek corroborative evidence in the proof of both parties. P. 164.

(e) In this case, there was not sufficient evidence of the taxpayer's financial history to substantiate directly the Government's opening net worth computation. Pp. 164-165.

(f) Uncorroborated admissions of a taxpayer regarding his tax returns for earlier years cannot serve to corroborate his other admissions. P. 165.

(g) The financial history of respondent and his business during the prosecution years provided sufficient independent evidence of the crime of tax evasion to corroborate his statements concerning cash on hand. Pp. 165–167.

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