State v. Brown

Citations

• 111 La. 696
• 35 So. 818
• 1904 La. LEXIS 550

Syllabus

<p>CRIMINAL LAW—APPEAL—BILL OP EXCEPTIONS —HOMICIDE—DYING DECLARATIONS—WITNESS—IMPEACHMENT—EVIDENCE.</p> <p>_ 1. Appellant cannot, through the recitals of his application for a new trial, eke out those which he should have embodied in his bills of exception.</p> <p>2. Declarations properly dying declarations do not lose their character as such by the fact that the party making them should have lived some time after making them. The action of the district court in allowing declarations made by the-deceased to he received as dying declarations must be assumed to be correct, when the judge states that his ruling was based upon the entire evidence adduced, and that evidence is not before the appellate court.</p> <p>3. It is not unusual for the trial court to allow a witness to be recalled to lay foundations for his impeachment. The legal situation is not changed by the fact that the witness'recalled is the accused himself, and, unless resulting injury appear, the action of the district court will be sustained.</p> <p>4. Appellant offered to prove by a witness that the deceased had, several months before the homicide, admitted the existence of certain facts, which it was assumed, if known by the accused, would have warranted the deceased in believing accused would attack him.</p> <p>The purpose of the testimony was to corroborate appellant’s testimony that he had killed the deceased in resisting an attack which he made upon him.</p> <p>Deceased had no reason to suppose that his .admissions had been communicated to the accused, and those admissions, if proved, could have no other effect than to have prejudiced the .jury against the deceased. They had no legal tendency to corroborate the testimony of the accused as to what occurred at ¿he time of the .homicide.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p>