State v. Foley

Citations

• 113 La. 52
• 36 So. 885
• 1904 La. LEXIS 613

Syllabus

<p>CRIMINAL LAW — HOMICIDE — EVIDENCE — RESGESTAS — DECLARATIONS Off DECEASED.</p> <p>1. The question of res gestse rests in great measure upon the circumstances of each case.</p> <p>2. The witness, a police officer, saw the light of the firing, ran to the spot where the shooting occurred, found the deceased in the gutter, near the curb, mortally wounded, and asked him, “Who shot you?” to which the wounded man replied, “Foley shot me without cause or provocation.”</p> <p>No one else was near; he made this reply before any one else had spoken to him.</p> <p>3. The reply was made after the two police-officers ran about 400 feet; that is, from where they stood to the place of the shooting.</p> <p>While the declaration was not immediately concurrent with the act, it was made within a very short space of time — -the time it takes to run 400 feet — and it .excludes all idea or appearance of design.</p> <p>Declaration of a person since deceased is admissible, provided it is made so soon after the-act as to preclude the conclusion that it was-made to fix the act on the defendant or to assist in his arrest.</p> <p>The statement has every appearance of one-made spontaneously, and prompted by the condition in which the deceased was found.</p> <p>The added words, “shot me without cause or provocation,” are words that one may utter without settled intention to fix the act or to cause arrest.</p> <p>“If, after the encounter which will end in death, the defendant or the wounded man makes a statement while the heat of it is on, though after a lapse of a period not definable in minutes, yet before there has been time to re-fleet and plan, it is admissible.” Bishop’s New Grim. Procedure, § 1086.</p> <p>The adjudications of late years have not been in the direction of restricting statements made under the circumstances of this case.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p>