Supreme Court upholds "dying words" testimony

[Beerina]

Guy is shot in a house, staggers to a gas station and falls over. Laying dying, he tells the cop who shot him and where, then he dies.

The issue: Can that statement be admitted as evidence during the murder trial, given the guy is dead and thus cannot be cross-examined. Ruling: Yes

Court upholds "dying words" testimony

More info


I agreed with the majority, but the more I thought about it, I realized Scalia may have a point.

Imagine the situation unfolds the same way, but the guy doesn't die. Later, he's on the stand:

Lawyer: You said he did this. How did you know it was him?

Guy: I saw him.

Lawyer: Did you see his face?

Guy: Well, no, it was from behind, but it was in his house, so it must have been him. It was about his size and hair.



So...that bit would be forever hidden from the jury.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I think it would be admissable as evidence in the UK but as evidence from the Cop and given the weight it deserved by direction from the Judge. It is after all Hearsay evidence.

 

[gumboot]

I think it would be admissable as evidence in the UK but as evidence from the Cop and given the weight it deserved by direction from the Judge. It is after all Hearsay evidence.

The words of a dead person are long established in English common law as the most well-known exception to hearsay evidence. In fact, traditionally a dying man was once considered one of the "tongued" (a person whose testimony should always be accepted as fact unless contrary and more compelling evidence exists)

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

I think it would be admissable as evidence in the UK but as evidence from the Cop and given the weight it deserved by direction from the Judge. It is after all Hearsay evidence.

This sounds like a good way to handle this. It's the cop on the stand, it's the cop's testimony. I can see a further case where the victim is dying, and their last words are some garbled sounds, made right after the officer asks 'who shot you' and audio pareidolia takes over, letting the officer hear the name of someone they already suspect. It's similar to Arthur finding that the holy grail is hidden in Castle Aaaaaaaarrrrrggggg.

 

[Ryokan]

In the USA, doesn't this contradict the 6th amendment?

 

[commandlinegamer]

Two issues here I can see:

1. The veracity of the statement by the deceased.

2. The faithful reproduction of that statement by the cop.

If you have recording equipment or other witnesses, then in theory you only have to deal with point 1.

But if only one person is witness to the statement, I think you have to treat it as regular hearsay.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I don't see why we have to assume people are any more honest when they're dying than at any other times. Heck, if I accidentally shot myself I'd feel pretty foolish about it, and might well be overcome, in my dying moments, by an urge to cover my mistake and get some payback on an enemy. Or I might just claim it was Sarah Palin, to ensure I at least got into the news and talked about on the JREF forums.

 

[bignickel]

If my memory serves me right, this is how Dr. Richard Kimble gets unjustly convicted in the movie version of "The Fugitive". His wive, barely conscious, is asked by police on the scene who did attacked her (instead of "What happened?"). She keeps saying "Richard", because she desperately wants him to help her, and is not hearing what the cops are asking her. This is possibly the final nail in the coffin for Kimble's case.

From there, it's right to exploding trains and Tommy Lee Jones chasing after ya.

 

[Suddenly]

In the USA, doesn't this contradict the 6th amendment?

That is the issue. In this case, the Court found the statements to not be "testimonial" and as such the confrontation clause didn't apply. The central concept is whether a statement is testimonial, that is intended for use in future litigation.

Having read it I agree with Scalia that the majority is creating a mess where one does not have to exist by substituting the intent of the interrogators for the intent of the declarant. This is the sort of fine print that will allow future courts to avoid having to apply basic confrontation clause law when they really don't want to grant relief.

 

[drkitten]

In the USA, doesn't this contradict the 6th amendment?

No.

This whole case was mishandled from beginning to end, frankly.

It's well-established in US law that a "dying declaration" is not subject to the hearsay objection (although of course the current SCOTUS seems to be happy to rewrite any precedent it feels like it in order to make its political point). Had the prosecution used the "dying declaration" exception, there would have been no question.

But the prosecution eff'ed up and didn't handle the appeal properly, and the appellate court ruled that if the prosecution couldn't show which exception to the hearsay rule this statement qualified under, then the statement was inadmissable. The SCOTUS knew damn well that the statement was admissible, but couldn't argue the prosecution's case for it -- it can only review the case the prosecution made.

So it reversed the decision that the appellate court made to get the answer the appellate court would have given if the prosecution had handled the appeal properly.

And thereby gutted the hearsay rule and allow anything anyone says you said to be used against you as long as the prosecution claims that what you said wasn't in the context of testimony.

 

[drkitten]

I don't see why we have to assume people are any more honest when they're dying than at any other times.

We don't. But we also don't assume that they're any less truthful, either.

Just because a statement is admissible doesn't mean that it's true or that it's going to be believed by the judge/jury.

The point of the rules of evidence is not to exclude that which isn't true. It's to exclude that for which better evidence is available. If the witness is unavailable -- and "dead" is pretty unavailable -- then we have to fall back on secondary sources, with the understanding that they're generally less reliable than primary sources, but they're all we have.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Sweet. My plan that in the event of my death I will use it to get Firefly restarted moves one step closer.

 

[NoZed Avenger]

Sweet. My plan that in the event of my death I will use it to get Firefly restarted moves one step closer.

Given the number of rabid fans wanting to jump-start that process, I advise you to immediately get into the witness prtection program. You are a marked man.

 

[JamesDillon]

But the prosecution eff'ed up and didn't handle the appeal properly, and the appellate court ruled that if the prosecution couldn't show which exception to the hearsay rule this statement qualified under, then the statement was inadmissable.

Although it doesn't come out in the opinion, I wonder if there was some question about the victim's subjective belief in his impending demise that prevented the prosecution from using the dying declaration exception. If the victim believes, even against all evidence, that he isn't actually about to die, then the statement isn't admissible as a dying declaration. (On that note, it isn't entirely accurate to say that the law places no greater presumption of reliability on a statement made in anticipation of death-- a person who dies against his own expectation is just as "unavailable," but his statement would not be admissible). Otherwise the prosecution made a glaringly elementary error, and while prosecutors do eff up from time to time, it's hard to believe that no one would have caught that.

 

[gnome]

..."It was Rick Berman and Brannon Braga...." *ungh* (die)