(cross out jest-tie) n. from Latin for “things done”, it means all the circumstances that surround and are related to an event. The res gestae of a crime thus includes the immediate environment and all events and statements immediately after the act. Statements made in the context of the resgestae of a crime or accident may be admitted in court, even if they are “hearsay”, because spontaneous statements are reliable in these circumstances. Nevertheless, the rule (hearsay) allows for certain carefully guarded and limited exceptions, one of which is that words can be proven if they are part of the res gestae. It ultimately seems to be based on two theses – that human expression is both fact and a means of communication, and that human action can be so intertwined with words that the meaning of action cannot be understood without correlative words, and the separation of words from action would hinder the discovery of truth. One of the most important decisions concerning the resgestae exception was that of the Privy Council in Ratten v. The Queen, who dealt with the admissibility of the testimony of a telephone operator who received a phone call from the deceased minutes before her alleged murder by her husband. The Board considered that the statement constituted original evidence of “oral facts” as opposed to hearsay evidence, since the purpose of admitting the statement was not to establish the veracity of the statement made, but only the fact that it had been made. The following observation was made: In W.I.T Ltd.
de Babulalv. It has been established that the legal statement contained in § 6 of the Evidence Act is generally known as res gestae. The literal meaning of the word “res” is “anything that may constitute an object of rights and includes an object, object or status”. In America, attempts are made to define res gestae as consisting of “circumstances, facts, and explanations” that flow from the main fact, are contemporaneous with it, and serve to illustrate its character. “Res gestae.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/res%20gestae. Retrieved 11 October 2022. In some jurisdictions, the res gestae exception has also been used to allow font sketches. [2] In federal courts and many state courts, however, specific hearsay rules in the rules of evidence have replaced the customary rule of hearsay, rendering res gestae testimony inadmissible. In many cases, the rules of evidence essentially prevail over the common law rule and permit res gesae testimony. For example, Rule 803 of the Federal Rule of Evidence explicitly excludes certain res gestae testimony from hearsay, making such evidence admissible. If the pronouncement of the words is a relevant fact, a witness may testify that they were spoken.
A hearsay question arises only if one relies on the words spoken “in a testimonial manner”, that is, as a statement of a fact told by the words. The criterion for the application of the res gestae rule is that the declaration must be spontaneous and part of the same undertaking, excluding any possibility of preparation. Despite its intuitive appeal, Wigmore`s idea that a person would not have time to make up a lie before making an excited statement in response to a surprising event is not confirmed by psychological research. The time it takes to create a lie is small – sometimes just a matter of seconds. It has been argued that the difference in response time between misleading and sincere responses is negligible. The excited statement exception, which tolerates more than a thirty-minute interval between the event and the statement, leaves more than enough time to plan a hoax. Psychological studies support this observation, pointing out that the difference between the time of cognition and when the explainer can begin to do it is so small that it is often impossible to measure without instruments. The res gestae doctrine has often been criticized. According to PROFESSOR STONE, “no problem of proof is so shrouded in doubt and confusion.” Professor WIGMORE considered that the rule was not only unnecessary but also harmful. Res gestae is also used in Respondeat Superior`s superior vicarious liability law. In particular, res gestae refers to the time, place and interest of an employer. [3] Traditionally, two reasons have made hearsay inadmissible: injustice and possible inaccuracy.
Allowing a witness to repeat hearsay does not give the accused an opportunity to question the speaker of the original testimony, and the witness may have misunderstood or misinterpreted the testimony. Thus, defence counsel in a trial may dismiss a witness` testimony as hearsay. But in the nineteenth century, borrowing the notion of res gestae from English law offered an exception to this rule. Res gestae is based on the conviction that certain statements, because they are made naturally, spontaneously and without consideration during an event, have a high degree of credibility and leave little room for misunderstandings or misinterpretations. The doctrine states that such testimony is more reliable than any other second-hand testimony and should therefore be admissible as evidence. Res Gestae is a Latin word meaning “things done”. This is the rule of evidence and an exception to the hearsay rule that hearsay evidence is not admissible. It is a spontaneous explanation of a person immediately after an event and before the mind has a chance to evoke a false story. This is an exception to the hearsay rule. Res gestae is a term commonly used in the English criminal justice system as “res gestae”.
In our system of administration of justice, section 19 of the Qanun-e-Shahadat 1984, which corresponds to section 6 of the Evidence Act 1872, is an enacted statutory provision that statements made immediately after the event under the influence of the event in order to qualify and relate to it would be admissible as “res gestae” evidence under that section. Res gestae describes a common law doctrine that governs testimony. According to hearsay, a court generally refuses to admit into evidence statements that a witness claims to have heard another person. The doctrine of res gestae provided for an exception to this rule. During the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century, the courts applied the exception by following a set of common law rules. With the introduction of the Federal Rules of Evidence, federal courts abolished res gestae as a common law doctrine and replaced it with explicit exceptions to the hearsay prohibition. To varying degrees, state rules of evidence are based on federal rules. Although the term is rarely used today, the legacy of res gestae is an integral part of the modern framework of hearsay evidence. Res gestae (Latin for “things done”) is a term used in substantive and procedural case law and in English law. In U.S. substantive law, it refers to the period from the beginning to the end of a crime. In U.S.
procedural law, it refers to an earlier exception to the hearsay rule for the spontaneous or in the context of an act. The English and Canadian versions of res gestae are similar, but are still recognized as a traditional exception to hearsay. Under the federal Rules of Evidence, res gestae may have been an exception to the rule against hearsay evidence in the past, but it is no longer because it is based on conviction that certain statements, because they are made naturally, spontaneously and without consultation during an event, leave little room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation when heard by someone else (e.g., by the witness, the statement will be repeated later in court) and the courts are therefore of the opinion that these statements have a high degree of credibility. Statements that could be admitted as res gestae as evidence can be divided into three headings: Note: Common law res gestae included a variety of different exceptions to hearsay, but most modern rules of evidence (such as the Federal Rules of Evidence) abandoned the use of res gestae and established the various exceptions on their own terms. These sample phrases are automatically selected from various online information sources to reflect the current use of the word “res gestae”. The views expressed in the examples do not represent the views of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us your feedback. In practice, cases involving res gestae were usually decided by applying some variation of these tests. In Carroll v. 1959 Guffey, 20 Ill. App. 2d 470, 156 N.E.2d 267, an Illinois appeals court heard an appeal from a defendant who was held liable for injuries sustained by another motorist in a car accident.
The trial court had admitted the plaintiff`s testimony about unidentified eyewitnesses who allegedly witnessed the accident thanks to defence counsel`s objection that the statements were hearsay. The Court of Appeal ruled that eyewitness testimony was not an exception res gestae: it did not occur at the same time as the collision, but after, and was merely an account of what the eyewitnesses had said.
