Trial of Sir Walter Raleigh (1603)
Justice Warburton: “I marvel, Sir Walter, that you being of such experience and wit, should stand on this point; for many horse-stealers should escape if they may not be condemned without witnesses.”
Meanwhile in America:
State v. Webb (1794)
Superior Courts of Law and Equity of North Carolina.
Pleasant Webb was indicted for horse-stealing, and upon the trial the Attorney General offered to give in evidence the deposition of one Young, to whom he had sold the horse in South-Carolina, but a very short time after the horse was stolen.
But per curiam, Judge Ashe and Judge Williams:
…. It is a rule of the common law, founded on natural justice, that no man shall be prejudiced by evidence which he had not the liberty to cross examine; and though it be insisted that the act intended to make an exception in this instance, to the rule of the common law, yet the act has not expressly said so, and we will not by implication derogate from the salutary rule established by the common law.– So the deposition was rejected.