Decedent

“ Their right of action arises only when his death is caused by 'the wrongful act or neglect.' If there be no omission of duty to the decedent, his heirs have no claim. Suppose an individual is wantonly assailed, and, in order to protect his own life, is obliged to kill the assailant,-may the heirs of the decedent have that act of taking life, rightful as against the decedent, adjudged wrongful as against them, and recover damages from one who did only that which his duty to himself and family required him to do? ”

“ It is urged that, on the death, a revivor was ordered; that the representative of the decedent's estate in Massachusetts, to wit, the administrator, was made a party defendant and appeared to the suit, and notice was given by personal service upon the executors and legatees in Michigan of the fact of the revivor, and that they were called upon to appear and defend. ”

“ When a man dies, his wife shall take one-third and his heirs shall take one-third of his chattels [movables or personal property] . The other third he may dispose of by will. If he had no heirs and no will [intestate] , all his chattels would escheat to his lord. Any distribution of chattels would take place after all the decedent's debts were paid from the property.
A will required two witnesses. The testator could name an executor, but if he did not, the next of kin was the executor. A will could not be made by a man on his death bed because he may well have lost his memory and reason. ”

“ Curteis, because he, I know, is bitterly prejudiced against me. But you will not refuse, I think, the solemn request of a dying man—for a dying man I feel myself to be—however long or short the interval which stands between me and the scaffold. It is not with a childish hope that any assertion of mine can avail before the tribunal of the law against the evidence adduced this day, that I, with all the solemnity befitting a man whose days are numbered, declare to you that I am wholly innocent of the crime laid to my charge. ”

“ In a word, gentlemen, the remains which have been found are those of a man exactly like the testator; they differ from him in no respects whatever; they display a mutilation which suggests an attempt to conceal an identifying peculiarity which he undoubtedly presented; and they were deposited in their various hiding-places about the time of the testator's disappearance. Accordingly, when you have heard these facts proved by the sworn testimony of competent witnesses, together with the facts relating to the disappearance, I shall ask you for a verdict in accordance with that evidence. ”

“ But it is insisted that death has the effect of withdrawing the assets and property of the deceased, of every description, from the influence of an execution, and placing all within the exclusive control of the probate courts. ”

“ AN average coroner's jury might sit on the skeleton of an anthropoid ape and return a verdict that the deceased came to his death at the hands of parties unknown, with the sublime consciousness of having performed their duty and earned their fees. ”

“ Side by side with this, publication was given to a will announcing the desire of another testator to be buried with a hearse surmounted by sable ostrich-plumes, with horses duly panachés and caparisoned, mutes and bearers and “pages,” scarfs and flowing hatbands and brazen-tipped staves, and all the rest of that elaborate panoply of woe which finds so much favor in the eyes, and affords such comfortable entries in the books, of old-established undertakers. Quot homines, tot sententiæ, thus every man seems to be of a different mind concerning the ordering of his funeral. ”

“ But lest there be one amongst you who has not heard from parent or uncle the true tale of him who has brought you all under one roof to-night, I will repeat it here in words, that no man may fail to understand why I remembered my oath through life and beyond death, yet stand above you an accusing spirit while you quaff me toasts and count the gains my justice divides among you. ”

“ If I have passed too rapidly for the reader’s willingness to linger, over the names of some highly distinguished men, who have so ably represented our country, at the British Court, and who still survive—it is because my dealings are with the dead. ”

“ As to the first, you have somewhere said, in one of your letters, that the final judgment on your merits as a poet is in the hands of posterity, and that you fear the verdict will be “Guilty,” and the sentence “Death.” Such apprehensions cannot have been fixed or frequent in the mind of one whose genius burned always with a clearer and steadier flame to the last. The jury of which you spoke has met: a mixed jury and a merciful. The verdict is “Well done,” and the sentence Immortality of Fame. There have been, there are, dissenters ”

“ To-morrow, when the law expires,
the dead man will, ipso facto, come to life again—the Revising
Barrister will restore his name to the list of voters, and he
will resume all his obligations as though nothing unusual had
happened.
JULIA. When he will be at once arrested, tried, and
executed on the evidence of the informer! Candidly, my friend, I
don't think much of your plot!
NOT. Dear, dear, dear, the ignorance of the laity! My
good
young lady, it is a beautiful maxim of our glorious Constitution
that a man can only die once. ”

“ In nearly all civilized countries an affirmation is now permitted to those who object to take an oath or upon whose conscience an oath is not binding. (See Affidavit; Oath.)
An exceptional position in law is accorded to a Dying or Deathbed Declaration. As a general rule, hearsay evidence is excluded on a criminal charge, but where the charge is one of homicide it is the practice to admit dying declarations of the deceased with respect to the cause of his death. ”

“ The tender association we hold with the last resting-place, the flower-planted grave of the beloved, fell heavily upon a heart meditating the immediate commission of what seemed, in spite of philosophy, to be a crime, and which is certainly a deed most painful and revolting in the execution. ”

“ Our law allows an appeal to be brought against a murderer by the widow, or next heir, of the person murdered, yea, though the murderer have been acquitted upon an indictment; and, if the murderer be found guilty upon that appeal, execution shall be awarded at the suit of the appellant, who may properly be called the avenger of blood. ”

“ Bodies are to be exposed for three days before burial, to see if they are really dead. Magistrates shall give a yearly account of their office before certain public "Examiners," who must be carefully selected, and, if found worthy, shall have special honours paid to them during life, and at their death a solemn public burial,—not with sorrow or lamentation ”

“ Upon which he raised his head to the edge of the coffin, and beholding such a parcel of frightful figures feeding as heartily as so many ploughmen; “Pray, says he, do dead men eat? Aye, aye, and drink too, says the doctor, or how should they live else?” “Then says the judge, if eating be to custom of this country, I will make my resurrection and pick a bit with you.” So they lent him a hand, and conducted him to a seat at the table. “Truly, says he, I am very glad to find that dead men live so merrily;” ”

“ To illustrate this a little, suppose a malefactor should be arraigned before a judge, and that after the witnesses, jury, and judge, have all condemned him to death for his fact, the judge again should ask, him what he can say for himself why sentence of death should not pass upon him? ”

“ This will be reported to thee and do thou send for him and bespeak him gently and say to him, “O thou that strivest for thine own destruction, what moveth thee to blame us among our subjects? Verily, thou deservest present death at our hands; but the ancients say, ‘Clemency is of the attributes of the noble.’ Know that our delay in answering thy master’s letter arose not from neglect on our part, but from our much business and lack of leisure to look into thine affair and write a reply to thy king.” ”

“ Suppose any one under sentence of death were offered a pardon, the errors of his past life to be for ever buried in oblivion, and honours and riches to be liberally bestowed upon him, on condition that he confessed his crime and pledged himself to lead a virtuous life in future; surely such a person must be considered mad, should he obstinately persist in guilt, and allow the sentence of the law to be carried into execution, when the means of preservation and of averting his dreadful fate were in his own hands! ”

“ This was agreed to by the judges, and sentence of death was passed against them; but in order to remove the dissatisfaction at such an exceptional method of procedure, it was found advisable to pass an act declaring that the judges had done right, and ratifying the sentence of death. ”

“ Thou hast deserved death, and I could compel thee to undergo the punishment; but in my clemency I place thy fate in thy own skillful hands. He who is the master of his destiny cannot complain that his sentence is a severe one. ”

“ The latter, entirely oblivious of the identity of the men and women about him, sat regarding the coroner and the jury while his restless fingers rolled a swagger stick held upright between the palms of his hands. ”

“ As to trouble being no worse than your present state, you must remember each sentence lengthens the period you have to serve to obtain your ticket-of-leave.'
'Death will grant me that before I am prepared to receive it, I fear, sir!'
'Nevertheless, I hope to see you a T.L. in life. Death can give you conditional pardon, of the conditions of which pardon you hear enough from Mr. Herbert. ”

“ Not to kill him, having a warrant, but to be damned for killing him, from the which no warrant can defend me.
FIRST MURDERER.
I thought thou hadst been resolute.
SECOND MURDERER.
So I am—to let him live.
FIRST MURDERER.
I’ll back to the Duke of Gloucester and tell him so.
SECOND MURDERER.
Nay, I prithee stay a little. I hope this passionate humour will change. It was wont to hold me but while one tells twenty.
FIRST MURDERER.
How dost thou feel thyself now?
SECOND MURDERER.
Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me. ”

“ But when it comes to a question of a death sentence it is quite another matter. Death is a horrible mystery, and a death on the scaffold, a cold-blooded, pre-determined, and ignominious death is especially horrible to the criminal mind. ”

“ But with a curiosity that is perhaps a little morbid, I sometimes let my thoughts dwell on these cases, wondering whether the dead man may not have carried to the grave with him the secret of some strange perplexity, some passion or craving or irresistible impulse, of which perhaps his intimates, and certainly the coroner's jury, can have had no inkling. ”

“ To what friend to direct thee I know not, for all mine have left me in the true time of trial. And I perceive that my death was determined from the first day. Most sorry I am, God knows, that being thus surprised with death I can leave you in no better estate. God is my witness, I meant you all my office of wines, or all that I could [Pg 68] have purchased by selling it, half my stuff, and all my jewels, but some one for the boy; but God hath prevented all my resolutions, that great God that ruleth all in all: but if you can live free from want, care for no more, the rest is but vanity. ”

“ It has been done. There is a case of a judge who sentenced a man to death and allowed the execution to take place, notwithstanding that he—the judge—had actually seen the murder committed by another man. ”

“ Wherefore, she having at length resolved, I have accordingly, by her commandment, to signify her Majesty's pleasure unto you touching Hurley, which is this:—That the man being so notorious and ill a subject, as appeareth by all the circumstances of his cause he is, you proceed, if it may be, to his execution by ordinary trial of him for it. ”

“ When a legatee or devisee, descended from the testator, dies before him, leaving any descendant who survives him; the legacy or devise shall vest in such surviving descendant, as if the legatee or devisee had survived the testator, and then died unmarried and intestate. ”

“ Let my criminal remains be purified, if it is possible, but being close to the innocent bodies of those who have been buried here. If Heaven is just, in compensation for the troubles I have had, may it deign to pardon those I have caused. ”

“ If it happened that the man killed was a servant of an Englishman, he added to the plea of the deceased being an Irishman, that if the master should ever demand damages, he would be ready to satisfy him. ”

“ I assure you, father, that an extraordinary amount of nonsense is talked nowadays concerning—well, the death penalty. Is it possible that you do not realise that I am escaping a much worse fate—that of having to live on? ”

“ But"—and here her earnestness dried up the tears which had been flowing freely during this recital of her husband's lonely death and sad burial—"do you not think an investigation should be made into a death preceded by a false obituary notice? For I found when I was in Philadelphia that no paragraph such as I had found pinned to my cushion had been inserted in any paper there, nor had any other man of the same name ever registered at the Colonnade, much less died there." ”

“ If, whenever I am called before the tribunal of God, I can appear with as clear a conscience as I now possess in regard to the alleged charge of the wilful murder of the unfortunate gentleman, the investigation of whose death has occupied your attention, it would be happy for me, as essentially securing to me eternal salvation ”

“ There are strange happenings to be explained, stories to be investigated, clues to be traced, evidence to be sifted, and until these things are done the jury cannot come to a decision. As they have seen and identified the deceased man, and have heard the detail of the finding of the body, the funeral may be held and the estate may be administered. ”

“ Such were his impetuosity and his mode of procedure, without instructing the notary, or the latter knowing, of whom he was talking, and confounding times and persons, and the living with the dead. And if by such testimonies a man is introduced in the documents as alive, when in reality he was dead, what wonder will it be if, for the greater disparagement of the regulars, the virtues are introduced as dead among them which are alive in them? ”