## Facts

- A 12-year-old girl went to an apartment in Washington, D.C., to meet a friend before visiting a relative in the hospital.
- Inside the apartment, she encountered Eugene Cunningham and the defendant, David A. Wiley, who was brought from a back bedroom after appearing to have been asleep.
- The girl testified that Cunningham restrained and choked her while Wiley held her legs, removed her clothing, and both men engaged in sexual intercourse with her.
- After the incident, she left the apartment and later contacted police; responding officers received her report that Wiley and Cunningham had raped her.
- Wiley and Cunningham were indicted for (1) carnal knowledge and (2) taking indecent liberties with a minor.
- Wiley was tried separately; the trial court dismissed the indecent-liberties count at the close of evidence and submitted only the carnal-knowledge count to the jury.
- The jury convicted Wiley of carnal knowledge, and he was sentenced to 4 to 12 years’ imprisonment.
- Wiley appealed, arguing that the government failed to present legally sufficient corroboration of the complainant’s account as required in District of Columbia sex-offense prosecutions.

## Issues

1. Whether the government presented sufficient independent corroborative evidence to satisfy the District of Columbia corroboration requirement for sex-offense prosecutions and permit the case to go to the jury on the carnal-knowledge charge.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit reversed the conviction.
- The court held that the government’s corroborative proof, viewed individually and collectively, was insufficient as a matter of law under the District’s corroboration requirement.
- Because corroboration was inadequate to allow a rational jury to credit the complainant’s account beyond a reasonable doubt as not fabricated, the conviction could not stand.

## Legal Principles

- In District of Columbia sex-offense prosecutions, the complainant’s testimony must be corroborated by independent evidence sufficient to allow a jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the account is truthful and not fabricated.
- The corroboration doctrine is a threshold sufficiency rule; if independent corroboration is legally inadequate, the case should not be submitted to the jury even if the complainant’s testimony, if believed, would otherwise establish the elements.
- Evidence consistent with an assault (such as distress or a report to police) does not necessarily corroborate the specific claim of intercourse by the particular defendant absent independent proof linking the defendant to the charged penetrative act.
- A concurrence questioned the policy basis of a special corroboration rule for sex offenses but agreed that, under then-controlling District doctrine, the conviction required reversal for insufficient corroboration.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit vacated Wiley’s carnal-knowledge conviction because the prosecution did not produce independent corroborative evidence meeting the District’s special corroboration requirement for sex-offense cases, leaving the critical allegation against Wiley supported essentially only by the complainant’s uncorroborated testimony.


United States v. Wiley, 492 F.2d 547 (D.C. Cir. 1974)