Lies on the Lips: Dying Declarations, Western Legal Bias, and Unreliability as Reported Speech

Abstract

When one individual is killed by another, the victim may utter some final words to a third party indicating the circumstances of the death, including the purported identity of the individual who perpetrated the event. This dying declaration, when repeated in court by the third party would generally be inadmissible under the hearsay rule. But in contrast to other forms of hearsay, dying declaration reported speech is admissible as legitimate and probative evidence as to the truth of the matter asserted through purported possession of "guarantees of trustworthiness." However, dying declarations are not inherently more reliable than other forms of inadmissible hearsay evidence. Court acceptance of these words is based on unfounded western legal assumptions that are expressed through logical fallacies, a mistaken conception of language objectivity, ignorance of the fundamental concepts of constructed speech, and a western legal manifest through application of self-centered frameworks and cosmologies. Overall, the basis of the dying declaration exception to the hearsay rule is founded on assumptions about language that are of questionable validity. By applying linguistic concepts to this form of speech, it would appear that the "guarantee of trustworthiness" rationale of the exception is, upon analysis, neither guaranteed nor trustworthy.

Note: This is a description of the paper and not the actual abstract.

Keywords: dying declarations, western legal bias, reported speech, hearsay