Deathbed Or Dying Declarations - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition deathbed-or-dying-declarations

Definition :

Deathbed or Dying Declarations are constantly admitted in evidence. The principle of this exception to the general rule is founded partly on the awful situation of the dying person, which is considered to be as powerful over his conscience as the obligation of an oath, and partly on a supposed absence of interest in a person on the verge of the next world, which dispenses with the necessity of cross-examination. But before such declarations can be admitted in evidence against a prisoner, it must be satisfactorily proved that the deceased, at the time of making them, was conscious of his danger, and had given up all hope or recovery [R. v. Perry, (1909) 2 KB 697], and this may be collected from the nature and circumstances of the case, although the declarant did not express such an apprehension. It is not essential that the party should apprehend immediate dissolution; it is sufficient if he apprehend it to be impending. See Taylor on Evid., 12th Edn., ss. 714 et seq. The (English) Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1867 (30 & 31 Vict. c. 35), ss. 6, 7, makes provision for taking the depositions of persons dangerously ill, and making the same evidence after death, and for prisoners being present at the taking of such depositions.

The party implicated, however, may produce evidence of the state of mind of the deceased and his behaviour or otherwise that he was not likely to be oppressed by the thought of death, and for a rejection on a trial for murder or a declaration of the dying victim in the presence of her speechless murderer (who was convicted and executed), see R. v. Bedingfield, (1879) 14 Cox CC 341. See DECLARATION OF DECEASED PERSON.