Common Law Dying Declaration

On May 27, the Court of Special Appeals in State v. Hailes, 2014 Md. App. LEXIS 49 (2014) (Moylan, J.), held that a common law dying declaration (not the broader rule based dying declaration) is exempt from the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause, and that the content of the declaration–which was an extra-judicial identification (photo array)–is only subject (under the federal constitution) to a reliability assessment if impermissibly suggestive.