The res festae be defined as those circumstances which are the automatic and undesigned incidents of a particular litigated act and which are admissible when illustrative of such act. These incidents may be seperated from the act by a lapse of time  more or less appreciable  . A transaction may last for six weeks. The incident may consist of saying s and doing of any one absorbed in the event whether participant or bystanders, they may comprise left undone as well as things done. They must be necessary incidents of the litigated act in the sense that what people say when talking about the act. hey are part of the immediate preparation for emanations of such act and are not produced by the calculated policy of the actors. They are act talking for itself. not In other words, they must stand on an immediate casual relation to the a relation not broken by the interposition of voluntary individual wariness, seeking to manufacture evidence for itself.

On a trial for murder, it was proved that the deceased, with her throat cut, came suddenly out of a room, in which she had left the prisoner.

Evidence was tendered to show that immediately after coming out of the room, and shortly before she died, she had made a remark implicating the accused man. It was held that her statement was not admissible in evidence, either as a dying declaration, as it did not appear that she was in fear of death, or as res gestae, as it was made after the transaction was complete. According to Justice Cockburn, the statement was not admissible. Anything, he said:

uttered by the deceased at the time the act was being done would be admissible, as, for instance, if she had been heard to say something. as Don't Harry! But here it was something stated by her after things all over, whatever admissible and after the act was completed. The statement was not admissible as a dying declaration, because it did not appear that the woman was aware that she was dying... Though she might have known it if she had time for reflection, here that was not so, for at the time she made the statement, she had no time to consider and reflect that she was dying; there is no evidence to show that she knew it, and I cannot presume it. There is nothing to show that she was under the sense of impending death, so the statement not admissible as a dying declaration. 

The expression 'res gestae', like many Latin phrases, is often used to cover situations insufficiently analysed in clear English terms. In the context of the law of evidence, it may be used in at least three ways 

1 when a situation of fact, eg killing is being considered, the question may arise when does the situation begin and when does it end. It may be arbitrary and artificial to confine the the evidence to the firing of the gun Or the insertion of the knife, without knowing in a broader sense what was happening. 

2 . The evidence may be concerned with spoken word s as such a part from the truth of what they convey. The words are then themselves the res gestae Or part of the res gestae  i.e  are the relevant facts or part of them. 

3. A hearsay statement is made either by the victim of an attack or by a by stander, indicating directly or indirectly the identity of the attacker. The Admissibility of the statement is then said to depend on whether it was made as part of the res gestae.