Dying Man's ID of Killer Is Admissable, Court Rules
(CN) - Michigan prosecutors were allowed to use a dying man's last words in which he identified his attacker in a murder trial, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 6-2, on Monday. In a sharp dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the decision leaves the constitutional Confrontation Clause "in a shambles" and demeans the court.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the court's majority opinion, which reverses the finding of the Michigan Supreme Court that the identification amounted to inadmissible testimony.

Detroit police spoke with the victim, Anthony Covington, as he lay on the ground of a gas station parking lot, dying of a gunshot wound to his abdomen in April 2001. Covington told police that he was shot after having a conversation with "Rick" through the back door of Rick's house. He drove to the gas station after he was shot through the door while leaving the property, Covington had said.

SC Decision on Admissible Testimony

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.