Volume 1

Text-book of forensic medicine and toxicology / by Arthur P. Luff.

  • Arthur P. Luff
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Text-book of forensic medicine and toxicology / by Arthur P. Luff. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/462 (page 4)
    1. The ijerson must believe that he is in cactual danger of death. 2. He must beheve that his recoveiy is impossil)le. 3. To make the declaration admissible as evidence, death nnist have ensued. The law assumes tliat no one would willingly leave this world telhng an untruth during the last moments of life; and that if an accusation is made at so solemn a time, it is doubtless a sincere one. At the same time it should be remembered that the accusation may be sincere and yet not be true. Taylor and Stevenson cite a case of a dying woman in St. Thomas's Hospital who accused a man of assaulting her on Kennington Common; lie was found guilty and executed; a year after his execution the real murderers were discovered, and the innocence of the executed man established. This conviction of approaching death in the mind of the person making the dying declaration is absolutely necessary for its acceptance as evidence in a court of law; for in the case of Jenkins (Crown Cases Eeserved, April 1869) a statement was rejected because the dying person, in using the expression ' I have no bope of my recovery,' requested that the words ' at present' should be added. In Beg. v. Londeshorough (York Lent Assizes, 1871) Mr. Justice Brett declined to receive a statement because the evidence went no further than that the dying man said ' he thought he should not get better.' Dying declarations are not available in civil but in criminal cases only, and they are only admissible in cases of homicide where the death of the person making the declaration is tbe suliject of the charge. The declarations must relate to the actual circumstances of the death and to nothing else. The same rules as to dying declarations hold good as to evidence on oath, vix.:—tliat a child of tender years must be proved to have had such religious knowledge as would have made the oath admissible. In the case of Beg. v. Perkins the dying declaration of a l)oy aged ten was received as evidence.