Wright v. State

Boyd, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree in the Circuit Court for Talbot County, to which ⁷⁰⁶ county the case was removed from Kent County where the homicide occurred. Although the record sets out at some length the proceedings in the cause, there is but one question presented by it, and that is the ruling of the Court below on an objection made by the State to the offer.to prove by one Joseph Johnson a statement made to him by the prisoner shortly after the shooting of the deceased, William Newcomb. It is contended on behalf of the appellant that the statement was made under such circumstances and at such a time as to be a part of the res gestae and that is denied by the State.

The record does not disclose what the statement was, but the Court refused to admit it. No inflexible rule can be adopted as to what lapse of time between the commission of an act and a declaration made, should exclude the declaration as not being a part of the res gestae. Each case must depend upon its own facts and circumstances. The act or declaration sought to be proven must, however, be so connected with .the transaction as to be a part of it and great care should be exercised by the Courts to prevent abuse of the rule that admits in evidence, under proper conditions, the unsworn statement of an accuser or an accused in his own favor.

They should be certain that such statements are not the result of premeditation, design or effort to inculpate another or to excuse one’s self. In 21 Ency. of Law, in, the rule is thus stated: “ Acts or declarations unconsciously associated with and relative to the principal act charged as an offence against the accused from its inception to its consummation and - final completion are admissible as part of the res gestae; but declarations made after all action on the part of the wrongdoer, actual or constructive, has ceased, or declarations made before the commission of the offence and entirely disconnected therewith, are not part of the res gestae and should not be admitted.” Mr. Wharton in his work on Criminal Evidence, section 262, says: “ Res gestae are events speaking for themselves, through the instinctive words and acts of . . . participants, not the words and acts of participants when narrating the ⁷⁰⁷ events. What is done or said by participants, under the immediate spur of a transaction becomes thus part of the transaction, because it is then the transaction that thus speaks.” In this case we find that immediately after the shooting, the prisoner ran out of the store where it took place, and then as soon as the witness Johnson satisfied himself that Newcomb was dead, he became frightened and also ran out of the store, and as he did