Mayhew v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The statement of Richardson that ‘He shot me’ is clearly a statement of fact and not a conclusion. It has been said, that the test .of a dying declaration is that the matters would be competent only if they would be coming from a living witness. Stewart v. Commonwealth, 235 Ky. 670 , 32 S.W.2d 29 , and cases cited therein. Since Richardson was only about three feet from May-hew at the time he was shot, and May-hew was clearly visible to him because of the headlights on the car, he was undoubtedly in a position to know that Mayhew did shoot him, and Richard son, of course, could have testified to this fact had he been living at the time of the trial. Under this test this part of the statement is competent. “The main objection to the declaration that the remainder of the statement: T don’t know why he shot me’, was a mere conclusion and the same as. if deceased had stated: ‘He shot me for nothing’, is without merit. It seems to us that the declaration is more like the statement that the deceased was doing nothing at the time he was shot. Such a statement in a dying declaration has often been held to be competent. Pennington v. Commonwealth, Ky., 68 S.W. 451 ;. Hunter v. Commonwealth, 221 Ky. 170 , 298 S.W. 379 ; Triplett v. Commonwealth, 245 Ky. 149 , 53 S.W.2d 348 ; Woods v. Commonwealth, 282 Ky. 596 , 139 S.W.2d 439 . “According to the two nurses the deceased said that he did not know why the man shot him. This court has passed on the admissibility of such a. declaration in ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Marcum v. Commonwealth