Commonwealth v. Haney

• Decision Date: 27 October 1879
• Citation: 127 Mass. 455
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Martin Haney, Jr
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

127 Mass. 455

Commonwealth v. Martin Haney, Jr

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

October 27, 1879

Worcester. Indictment for the manslaughter of Patrick Cannon by kicking him in the abdomen, at Clinton.

At the trial in the Superior Court, before Brigham, C. J., for the purpose of laying the foundation for introducing evidence of Cannon's dying declarations, Christopher C. Stone was called as a witness, and testified as follows: "I am special justice of the Police Court of Clinton, have seen the defendant and know Patrick Cannon; I think on October 10th last, on a Thursday, I went to the house of Patrick Cannon and saw him in a small bed-room lying in bed, propped up by pillows, very weak, so much so that it was hard at times to distinguish what he said; I should say he was from fifty to fifty-five years old; he said he could not live, when I first spoke to him, and used the word 'death;' I said 'I hope it is not so bad as that;' he said, 'I cannot live;' I said, 'I want your statement;' he said, 'I can give it if I can have time;' again he said, 'I cannot live long;' he made a statement to me, in answer to my questions; I repeated his answers to a clerk who was in an adjoining room, the door between which and Cannon's bed-room was open, and he immediately wrote down Cannon's answers as I gave them to him; I afterward read to Cannon the answers so written by the clerk, and he said they were correct, and signed them by making his mark and I attested his mark; he died, I think, four days afterwards."

The witness then produced the statement in writing, which purported to be signed by Cannon by his mark, to be attested by the witness, and to be sworn to before him. The statement charged the defendant with the assault alleged in the indictment, and narrated the particulars; but said nothing about the deponent's expectation of death.

Stone was about to testify as to the declarations made by Cannon to him in relation to the cause of his expected death, and was about to use the written statement to refresh his memory as to said declarations, when, upon the call of the defendant's counsel, the written statement was put in evidence and read to the jury, subject to the defendant's objection, that it did not appear affirmatively that Cannon at the time of answering the questions put to him and affixing his mark to the statement, had no expectation and hope of recovery; and that it did not appear that he was then under the impression of almost immediate dissolution; and also by reason of the manner in which the statement was obtained.

There was evidence tending to prove that, when the witness Stone obtained the declarations from Cannon, the latter was suffering from an injury of which he subsequently died.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty; and the defendant alleged exceptions.

Exceptions overruled.

J Hopkins & J. W. Corcoran, for the defendant. 1. The conversation of Cannon, prior to the written declarations, does not necessarily import the existence of a conviction and belief that death was about to ensue, or show conclusively that he expected and believed that death was imminent. The expression "I cannot live" is qualified by his statement "I cannot live long," which imports that, if he was conscious that his wound was mortal, he expected to live for an appreciable space of time, and, while there is expectation of life, it cannot be said that the man is under the impression of almost immediate dissolution. Any...