Commonwealth v. Werntz

Citations

• 161 Pa. 591
• 29 A. 272
• 1894 Pa. LEXIS 739

Syllabus

<p>Assignments of error — Evidence—Praetioe, Supreme Court. Assignments of error to the admission or rejection of testimony must set forth so much of the preceding or the accompanying evidence as is necessary to a proper understanding of the offer and the ruling of the court upon it, and, if testimony objected to be admitted, so much of it as may suffice to show why it was injurious to the party excepting. The neglect of these requirements is not cured by putting the necessary matter in the bill of exceptions or elsewhere in the record or the paper-book. They belong in the assignments, and must be set out there in full, whether they appear elsewhere or not.</p> <p>Evidence — Declarations—Res gestee.</p> <p>If declarations are made under such circumstances as will raise the reasonable presumption that they are the spontaneous utterances of thoughts created by or springing out of the transaction itself, and so soon thereafter as to exclude the presumption that they are the result of premeditation and design, they will be admissible as part of the res gestas.</p> <p>Criminal law — Murder—Declarations—Evidence.</p> <p>On the trial of an indictment for murder by stabbing, the defence was that the act was committed by a colored servant of defendant. A police surgeon testified that while he was at the door outside the shed in which the fight took place, he heard a voice inside, which he recognized as that of Gallagher, the injured man, saying “ the coon did it; ” that when Gallagher was brought out of the shed he repeated the same thing; and that witness followed him to a barber shop where he was carried, on the other side of the street, and across a lot, and there dressed his wound. Witness was then asked whether Gallagher while lying on the floor of the shop had made the same or a similar declaration. Held, that the question should have been permitted.</p> <p>The declarations were by the party best informed and most interested, and were made at a time and place, to a per