Donnelly v. United States

228 U.S. 243 (1913)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

At trial, D offered to show that one Joe Dick, an Indian, since deceased, had confessed that it was he who had shot Chickasaw. The circumstances of the crime, as detailed in the evidence strongly tended to exclude the theory that more than one person participated in the shooting, the Dick confession, if admissible, would have directly tended to exculpate D. D showed at the trial that Dick was dead, thereby accounting for his not being called as a witness, and showed circumstances that, it was claimed, pointed to him as the guilty man. Dick lived in the vicinity and therefore presumably knew the habits of Chickasaw; that the human tracks upon a sand bar at the scene of the crime led in the direction of an acorn camp where Dick was stopping at the time, rather than in the direction of the home of D; and that beside the track there was at one point an impression as of a person sitting down, indicating, as claimed, a stop caused by shortness of breath, which would be natural to Dick, who was shown to have been a sufferer from consumption. The evidence was excluded and D was found guilty and appealed.