South Dakota Supreme Court
State v. Clark
July 2, 192346 S.D. 490
Summary
The court reversed the conviction because the dying declaration improperly included extensive, inflammatory matters unrelated to the circumstances of the death, and because the remaining evidence did not establish criminal intent beyond conjecture. The court also held that the state improperly impeached a defense witness with extrinsic evidence concerning a collateral matter. No separate opinions were filed.
Holding
- Scope and admissibility of the dying declaration. A dying declaration may include only matters to which the deceased could have testified if alive and present at trial, and it is limited to identifying the accused and deceased and establishing the circumstances of the transaction from which the death resulted. The declaration's extensive account of the deceased's betrayal and abandonment was immaterial, inflammatory, and prejudicial and should have been excluded.
- Sufficiency of proof of criminal intent. The evidence was insufficient to establish criminal intent because, even accepting the state's material evidence, it did not determine whether Leuth went to the appellant to obtain an abortion or to obtain treatment for a miscarriage-producing condition that already existed. An inference of guilt cannot rest on circumstances equally consistent with another rational conclusion.
- Extrinsic impeachment on a collateral matter. The trial court erred by allowing the state to introduce extrinsic testimony that a defense witness had made an allegedly inconsistent statement about the deceased's accusation against the appellant, because the matter was collateral and the state could not have introduced it as part of its own case.
Docket File No. 5100