Case ID: ohio-st_21/html/0641-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William Forrest v. The State of Ohio.
    1. It is not competent for a defendant, on trial for murder, to prove declarations made by himself immediately after the homicide in regard to the fact: of the homicide and the circumstances attending it. Such declarations-form no part of the res gestee, but are simply a narrative made by the defendant in regard to a past transaction.
    2. The fact that the State did not object to that part of the declarations of thedefendaut thus proved by him, that showed “that he had shot a man and wanted to give himself up," does not furnish him any ground of complaint, or right to the admission in evidence of the other declarations made by him in the same conversation.
    Error to the court of common pleas of Erie county.
    Eorrest was indicted and tried for murder in causing the-death of Taylor by a pistol shot. The two were armed with loaded pistols, and engaged in an affray in the house of Johnson, in the town of Sandusky. During the affray a wagon was passing with four persons in it, who heard the-firing, and stopped in plain view of the house, and within ten rods of it. They saw Taylor come out of the house, and Forrest come quickly to the corner and fire the fatal shot and jump back. Immediately thereafter Forrest came through the gate and directly to the wagon, and said he wanted to give himself up to the authorities. At the trial Forrest, to maintain the issue on his part, called George Russell, one of the persons in the wagon, and offered to prove by him that when he (Forrest) came to the wagon he seemed agitated, and asked them if they were going down town (which would be toward the court house and jail), and that they said “ no, not just now,” and asked him why ? and that he said a man came to the house where he was stopping —came to his bedroom door — saying he was going to shoot him, and jerked the door open, and fired his revolver at him; that he fired back, and afterward each fired once or twice; that the man then ran out of the house and to the window, as he supposed, to shoot him through it; that he (Forrest) ran out to get away, but in getting to the gate it brought him in range of the man’s pistol, which was pointed at him, and ■ that, to save himself, he fired at the man and killed him, and wanted to give himself up. That Forrest then left them and came alone toward the court house and jail, which were from a quarter to a half a mile distant, and proceeded directly to the court house and gave himself up. The State objected to all of the declarations of Forrest explaining how the transaction occurred, but did not object to his declarations to the effect that he had shot a man and wanted to give himself up. The court sustained the objection, but the declarations to the effect that he had shot a man and wanted to give himself up, were given to the jury. To all which the defendant excepted.
    
      John Mackey for plaintiff in error:
    1 Greenl. Ev. sec. 218; 1 Wharton’s Am. Crim. Law, 700; Commonwealth v. Pike, 3, Cush. 181.
    
      F. B. Pond, attorney general for the State: Wetmore v. Mell, 1 Ohio St. 28 ; The State v. Tilley, 3 Ired. (N. C.) 435 ; 1 Greenl. Ev. (12th ed.) sec. 110 ; Ib. p. 123, note 2.
   By the Court

Held:

1st. The declaration made by Forrest, and which he offered to prove by Russell, in regard to the fact of the homicide, and the circumstances attending it, were not declarations made in such connection with the homicide as to be a part of the res gestae, but were merely the narrative given by Forrest himself, in regard to the transaction after it had taken place. It was not competent for him to give such declarations of his own in evidence.

2d. The declaration of Forrest that he had shot a man and wanted to give himself up, were given in evidence by himself and not objected to by the State. That they were so given in evidence, and not objected to, can furnish him no ground for complaint. For aught that appears, the court would have permitted him to withdraw the proof of those declarations from the jury, had he made the request.

Judgment affirmed.