Bemmerly

Upon the trial of the , defendant, upon an information in which he was charged with *118 murder, a document purporting to be the dying declaration of the deceased was offered in evidence by the prosecution. The defendant objected to its introduction. The objection was overruled, and defendant excepted. The grounds of objection appear to be: 1. The declaration does not show that it was made under a sense of impending death. It commences as follows: “I, Mat Faigle, aged forty-three, and a native of Germany, believing my life to be in great danger, being shot in the left side, above the heart, by a ball from the pistol in the hands of one John Wahlfrom, do now, before my God and the undersigned witnesses, make the following true statement, believing it to be my last.”

Whether the statement, alone, would be sufficient to satisfy the rule that the declaration must be made under a sense of impending death need not be decided in this case, as there was other evidence that it was so made. Professor Greenleaf says: “ It is essential to the admissibility of these declarations, and is a preliminary fact, to be proved by the party offering them in evidence, that they were made under a sense…