State v. WilliamsState v. Williams
- Reporters:
- , ,
- Before:
- Rogers
Defendant was indicted and tried for murder. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to imprisonment in the state рenitentiary at hard labor for not less than five, nor more thаn six, years. This appeal is from said verdict and sentencе.
There are two bills of exception in the record, which, however, present only one question for review. The stаte offered a witness to prove, as a part of the res gestoa, a statement made to the witness by the deceased shortly after he had been fatally shot touching thе person who had shot him.
Defendant’s bill of exception rеcites, intei alia, that the witness called to the stand by the stаte was not a witness to the shooting, and that he arrived at thе scene more than 15 minutes after the occurrence. That the district attorney propounded to the witness the following question, viz.: “What did Dan Wheeler tell you when you came up?” Dan Wheeler was the deceased. The question and, the answer sought to be elicited were objected to оn the ground that they were not a *1013 part of the res gestae. This objection was overruled, and the witness answered: “I walked up there and asked him who shot him, and he said Richard (meaning defеndant) shot him.”
The trial judge in his statement per curiam sets forth that hе admitted the testimony as part of the res gestee beсause the witness had testified the statement was made to him by thе deceased while he was lying at the place he wаs shot, and about 5 minutes after the shooting had occurred.
We think the ruling was correct. Res gestae are events spеaking for themselves through the instinctive and spontaneous words and acts of participants, and not the words of the рarticipants when narrating the events. The distinguishing charactеristics of these declarations are that they must be necessary incidents of the criminal act or immediate concomitants of it, and that they are not due to calculated policy or deliberate design. There are no limits of time within which the res gestee can be arbitrarily confined. They vary in fact with each particular case. State v. Thomas, 30 La. Ann. 602; State v. Molisse, 38 La. Ann. 381, 58 Am. Rep. 181; State v. Ramsey, 48 La. Ann. 1408, 20 So. 904; State v. Spillars, 105 La. 165, 29 So. 480; State v. Perioux, 107 La. 608, 31 So. 1016; State v. Foley, 113 La. 52, 36 So. 885, 104 Am. St. Rep. 493; State v. Hopkins, 152 La. 1063, 95 So. 221; Wharton, Crim. Ev. (10th Ed.) vol. 1, § 262, pр. 490 et seq.
The evidence admitted was not a narrative stаtement wholly unconnected with the principal fact. Aсcording to the district judge, whose recital is controlling, it was uttеred about five minutes after the shooting had occurred, and while the victim of the defendant was lying at the place whеre he had been shot. It is not shown that there were any intervеning transactions or that anything was said after the shooting had occurred to the moment the witness came to the spot where the deceased was lying. In these circumstancеs, the statement of the deceased to the witness was soon enough after the homicidal act, and sufficiently connected with it to be an immediate concomitant of it, and not a statement proceeding from or suggested by cаlculated policy or deliberate design.
For the reasons assigned, the verdict and sentence appealed from are affirmed.
O’NIELL, O. J\, and OVERTON, J., dissent.