Superior Court of North Carolina, 1798

State v. . Moody

Superior Court of North Carolina · Decided July 5, 1798 · HAYWOOD, J.,

3 N.C. 31

Counsel

Badger for the prisoner: I perceive it cannot be read, because the justice says he believes the deceased was first examined and what he said taken down, and then he was sworn to the truth of the contents. He should have been first sworn to tell the whole truth and then what he said taken down. As he was sworn, he might have sworn truly, and yet not to all he knew.

Opinion of the Court

I cannot think this paper is receivable at any rate. How is it possible a man can be a witness to prove his own death?

Addendum

thinking there might be something in Badger's objection, did not insist upon receiving the testimony.

So it was rejected.

NOTE. — See S. v. Poll, 8 N.C. 442, where it was held that the declarations of a deceased person that he was poisoned by certain individuals, not made immediately previous to his death, but at a time when he despaired of his recovery, and felt assured his disease would prove fatal, were admissible as dying declarations.

Cited: S. v. Blackburn, 80 N.C. 478; S. v. Shouse, 166 N.C. 308.

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