Justice Chambers

THE RADIANT JUSTICE CHAMERS, OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY CORPUS DELICTI Corpus delicti literally means "body of the crime" in Latin. It is pronounced as                                       [ kawr-puhs di-lik-tahy ]. It is also sometimes referred to as "body of evidence" or "material element" in English legal systems. Corpus delicti is the principle that a crime must be proved to have occurred before a person can be convicted of committing that crime. In essence corpus delicti means that some type of evidence needs to be found before a person can be convicted of a crime. Then no literal 'body' will be needed so far as circumstantial evidence is established. If a crime has been committed and evidence is disposed of or destroyed, the corpus delicti rule may nonetheless allow the prosecution to bring a case against a person. Corpus delicti is not to be misinterpreted to have a li...