In People v. Kraft (148 N.Y. 631 [1896]), dealing with the statement of the deceased who died at the hospital after an abortion, the Court reversed a conviction for murder because the trial judge told the jury that a dying declaration had the same weight as testimony given in court. The Court wrote that although dying declarations are an exception to the rule against "second-hand evidence" (id. at 633), even if admissible based on public policy, they do not have "all the guarantees which surround evidence given under oath in a court of justice" (at 634). "While there is an assumption that the presence of death is equal to the oath, the law does not, and cannot, regard the [dying declaration] as of the same value and weight as the evidence of a witness given in a court of justice, under all the tests and safeguards which are there afforded for discovering the truth . . . by the means of cross-examination, and the jury have the opportunity of observing the demeanor of the person whose testimony is relied upon. (Id. at 634.)