What if someone accuses another person of killing him in his last statement before death Suppose, Person X has some minor feud with person A. If X sets himself on fire and accuses A of killing him (last statement before legal authorities) and later dies. Will last statement of deceased work as criteria to punish accused A? How does last statement weigh against evidences? Don't go in the matter whether it was a suicide or murder. Point of question is about last statement of deceased. Please mention respective law prevalent in India.
To &quot;punish&quot; A there must be evidence that would convince the court beyond reasonable doubt. The last statement will be just a piece of admissible evidence. Just by itself it will certainly not be enough to prove A's guilt, but it may add weight if there are other corroborating pieces of evidence e.g. witnesses saying that X indeed killed themselves because A made them do so etc.
The answer provided by Dale M is half right, but there are a few things that I think are wrong. Firstly, the actual reality of the situation doesn't matter. What matters is that you act in a reasonable manner, performing assessments of the situation as a reasonable person would do. If you misread the situation, and end up killing a police officer that was acting in a lawful manner, it doesn't necessarily mean you were acting unlawfully yourself. Because police officers are generally exposed to situations where they would be forced to use their firearm, that obviously would impact how a reasonable person would see the situation, but the test for reasonableness would not go out the window. In addition, even if you were found to not be acting in a reasonable manner, there is certainly a question if you would be found guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter rather than murder. It's possible the self-defence claim would be upheld as an imperfect defence.
Basically, it is up to the court. The relevant law is the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE). You don't give much in the way of specifics, but it sounds like you confessed something to the police at the side of the road immediately after the accident, and now wish to dispute that confession. If you are taken to court and the police want to introduce your confession as evidence then you (through your lawyer) can ask the court to rule it out. You may be able to do so on a number of grounds. Was the confession properly recorded at the time? Were you treated in an oppressive manner, such that you felt you had to say what the police wanted to hear. Did you think you might get more favourable treatment if you said what the police wanted? For instance, did you think you might be allowed to go home once they were satisfied? Were you given a proper rest, or were you in a mental state that might cause you to say things without understanding the consequences (it sounds like this would be your main argument, but consider the others too). [Edit] If you needed medical treatment that would also be relevant. Were you properly cautioned (that speech beginning "You do not have to say anything...") before the police asked you questions. If you think you may be facing criminal charges then you should get yourself a lawyer sooner rather than later. A lawyer will know all about this and be able to navigate the relevant legal processes on your behalf. A bit of background: back in the 1970s the police frequently attributed incriminating statements to suspects when arrested, such as "Its a fair cop, guv", or "Who ratted on us?". The rules in PACE were made to stop such "verballing".
Being misunderstood is not a crime. You could concoct scenarios where any number of statements could be a crime if interpreted unfairly. "I went to Georgia last weekend." "I choose to believe you mean the country instead of the state, and you don't have a passport, therefore you admitted that you went to a foreign country illegally!" The police would be free to investigate, but they wouldn't be able to get a warrant or arrest him based just on an ambiguous statement, let alone obtain a conviction. Of course, if the younger sister decided to accuse him, and the older sister decided to lie about having a relationship with him, that puts the statement in a whole other context - but if someone is falsely accusing you and someone else corroborates their story, you're probably in trouble no matter how exactly that came about.
There are instances when the testimony may still be admitted. For example, a deposition may be admitted at trial either for impeaching or when a witness cannot attend, which involves the circumstance of death (FRCP 32(a)(4)(a)). Additionally, regarding hearsay, there are numerous exceptions. My Evidence professor said in class "If you cannot find a way to get evidence around a hearsay objection, you are not trying hard enough." One such hearsay exception states in the committee notes: Accordingly, the committee has amended rule 803(8) to refer to the provision of [proposed] rule 804(b)(5) [deleted], which allows the admission of such reports, records or other statements where the police officer or other law enforcement officer is unavailable because of death, then existing physical or mental illness or infirmity, or not being successfully subject to legal process.
Note: The answer to the question is not the same in every U.S. state and territory. I have provided definitive answers only when there is unanimity or near unanimity. Did the deceased's family obligate themselves by not returning the the first service, that of the Notice of Appeal? No. Unless they expressly agree to do so in writing to be responsible for a decedent's debts (which almost never happens in the U.S.) next of kin of have liability regarding the debts of a decedent (at least by virtue of being next of kin, obviously, if they were, example co-defendant in a case who participated in the wrongful conduct, that could be another matter), except that it may result in a claim against the probate estate which reduces the size of their inheritances (potentially to zero), if timely asserted in the probate estate. As the next of kin are they obligated to receive the mail addressed to the deceased? No. Also, counsel for a decedent are terminated as counsel as a matter of law upon the death of a client. It is customary for a lawyer in the case (often, although not necessarily, the lawyer for the decedent if the decedent was represented by counsel at the time of death) to file a document usually entitled "suggestion of death" in the pending case when someone dies. But, no one is obligated to do so, and if the party is self-represented in the case (a.k.a. pro se), or that party's lawyers have withdrawn from the case, neither the decedent's former lawyers, nor anyone else in the case, may even be aware of that fact that the party to the case has died. What would be a possible remedy to keeping the claim active against this defendant albeit deceased defendant? File a claim in the estate of the decedent if the deadline for filing claims has not lapsed (which two years later, it may very well have). Normally, either a claims deadline that functions by operation of law (e.g. a state law non-claim deadline one year after the date of death), or a claim deadline arising from publication of a notice to creditors in the legal section of a newspaper in the area where the decedent died in a manner prescribed by state statute, would bar the claims, especially if the status quo was that they had been dismissed at the time of the decedent's death, even if there were still undistributed assets left in the probate estate after the deadline for filing claims has expired. It may also be possible to do a substitution of parties of the decedent's probate estate for the decedent in the pending case, if a probate estate has been opened and the deadline for filing claims has not yet lapsed. If a probate estate has not been opened, usually, after a certain amount of time, a creditor may open up the estate without the consent of the next of kin, or a public administrator will be appointed if there are no next of kin who have done so, and there are assets left to be managed in the probate estate. The law governing exactly when a probate estate has liability for the debts of a decedent incurred during life is a matter of state law that varies in significant detail between different states within the United States and is quite technical. I've written a couple of Colorado Bar Association journal articles on that subject applying Colorado law (Andrew Oh-Willeke, "Creditor's Rights In Probate - Part I and II", The Colorado Lawyer, May 2015 and June 2015). Note that the general rules may not apply in all cases to lawsuit brought "in rem" (i.e. adjudicating rights in a particular piece of property) although those kinds of cases aren't very common in federal court and would rarely involve the fact pattern set forth in the original post. Footnote Re Federal Civil Procedure For many years there was a lack of clarity, and/or a split of authority between U.S. Court of Appeals Circuits, over the proper time to appeal a ruling dismissing a party entirely from a case as a matter of federal civil procedure in various circumstances. It was resolved a few years ago, but I don't recall the outcome of that case. The general rule, expressed in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) is that the dismissal of a party in a case cannot be appealed unless the trial court certifies that decision as final for purposes of appeal which is a discretionary decision for the trial court judge.
It depends on the law For example, the NSW Crimes Act 1900 s18 defines murder and manslaughter: (1) (a) Murder shall be taken to have been committed where the act of the accused, or thing by him or her omitted to be done, causing the death charged, was done or omitted with reckless indifference to human life, or with intent to kill or inflict grievous bodily harm upon some person, or done in an attempt to commit, or during or immediately after the commission, by the accused, or some accomplice with him or her, of a crime punishable by imprisonment for life or for 25 years. (b) Every other punishable homicide shall be taken to be manslaughter. (2) (a) No act or omission which was not malicious, or for which the accused had lawful cause or excuse, shall be within this section. (b) No punishment or forfeiture shall be incurred by any person who kills another by misfortune only. It is possible that the acts you describe could be prosecuted as either murder or manslaughter. For murder the prosecutor would need to prove that they are an &quot;act by the accused ... causing the death charged, was done ... with reckless indifference to human life&quot; - the hard part is the causal link. For manslaughter it is clear that the act &quot;was ... malicious&quot; and that there was no &quot;lawful excuse&quot; - some cause and effect would need to be demonstrated still. However, the prosecutor has a more certain option under s31C: 31C Aiding etc suicide ... (2) Where: (a) a person incites or counsels another person to commit suicide, and (b) that other person commits, or attempts to commit, suicide as a consequence of that incitement or counsel, the firstmentioned person shall be liable to imprisonment for 5 years. It is important to look at the legal definition of a crime to determine if a given set of circumstances meets all the required elements.
"If it were not assize-time, I would not take such language from you." (said while grabbing the handle of sword) This is a famous conditional threat where the speaker/actor was not found to express intent to do harm; perhaps better called a negative condition. This probably confuses matters but if you are to search for more answers this could be a good place to start. One of the elements of common law assault is that the threat must be able to be carried out immediately; it must be imminent. I do not have a cite for this but I recall that this means that conditional threats are excluded from assault. So calling a politician on the phone and telling them that if they do not drop out of a race you will hurt them is not assault. So, "You cut that out now or you’ll go home in an ambulance" sounds a lot like, "stop or you will get hurt." The victim has the opportunity to avoid the danger; the threat is not imminent. But the facts here are interesting because the speaker touched the victim while speaking which might mean fear of imminent was real. But they were in a crowded room in front of cameras - could the victim really feel that threat was imminent? Plus, the "you will go home" implies a future harm. Oh, and the speaker does not say "I will hurt you," maybe she was actually trying to protect the victim from someone else's actions. Like when my teacher knew someone was waiting outside the classroom to fight me and she told me, "if you go out there you will get hurt!" I would hope that a jury would consider this hard bargaining.