RES GESTAE
res gestae (rays jes-tee alsojes-tI), n. pl.[Latin “things done”] The events at issue, or other
events contemporaneous with them. • In evidence law, words and statements about the res gestae
are usu. admissible under a hearsay exception (such as present sense impression or excited
utterance). Where the Federal Rules of Evidence or state rules fashioned after them are in effect,
the use of res gestae is now out of place. See Fed. R. Evid. 803(1), (2). — Also termed res gesta.
[Cases: Criminal Law 363–368; Evidence 118–128. C.J.S. Criminal Law §§ 454, 831,
867–876; Evidence §§ 342–363.]
“The Latin expression ‘res gestae’ or ‘res gesta,’ literally ‘things done’ or ‘thing transacted,’
has long served as a catchword …. [T]he phrase has frequently served both to let in utterances
which in strictness were not admissible and to exclude utterances which might well have been
admitted. And frequently also its indefiniteness has served as a basis for rulings where it was
easier for the judge to invoke this imposing catchword than to think through the real question
involved. The phrase is antiquated. By modern judges it is being gradually discarded. It is
superfluous, and serves only to obscure the logic of the rules. It should be left to oblivion.” John H.
Wigmore, A Students’ Textbook of the Law of Evidence 279 (1935).
“The res gestae embraces not only the actual facts of the transaction and the circumstances
surrounding it, but the matters immediately antecedent to and having a direct causal connection
with it, as well as acts immediately following it and so closely connected with it as to form in
reality a part of the occurrence.” State v. Fouquette, 221 P.2d 404, 416–17 (Nev. 1950). [Blacks Law 8th]