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Court: failure to give confession‑corroboration instruction not plain error
Summary
The Georgia Supreme Court found that omission of a specific jury instruction on statutory confession corroboration did not constitute plain error because the State introduced ample independent corroboration of Jester’s recorded statements.
The Supreme Court concluded that the trial court’s failure to give a discrete jury instruction on the statutory requirement that a confession be corroborated (OCGA § 24-8-823) did not amount to plain error in Jquantae Jester’s trial. The court applied the plain-error standard because defense counsel did not request the instruction or object to its omission at trial.
Under Georgia law, a conviction cannot rest on an uncorroborated confession alone. The opinion explained that no particular form of corroboration is required; corroboration in any particular is sufficient. The court found that investigators’ forensic and circumstantial evidence corroborated numerous particulars of Jester’s recorded statements: the medical examiner’s findings about asphyxia and moisture in the trash bag, the fingerprint evidence on the container and bag, evidence that the container matched a closet space in Parlier’s home, cell-site location information showing a phone associated with Jester near Parlier’s house and later near the interstate where the body was found, and documentary and surveillance evidence of postmortem use of Parlier’s EBT and credit cards.
Because those independent facts matched material elements of Jester’s confession — including how Parlier was killed and where the body was discarded — the court held that omission of the instruction was unlikely to have affected the outcome and therefore did not satisfy the stringent plain-error standard for reversal.
