A deathbed confession is an admittance or confession made by a person on their deathbed, i.e., when they are nearing death.
Such confessions may help alleviate any guilt or regrets the dying person has, by allowing them to spend their last moments free from any secrets or sins they have been hiding for a long part of their life. If religious, the confessor may believe that confessing will earn them forgiveness from a higher power, granting them entrance to a better place after death. Further rationale may be that a person nearing death will not be able to face any significant punishments for the confession, such as shame or imprisonment. Deathbed confessions can be given to anyone, with family members and medical staff particularly likely to hear them, as they are often present in a person’s last moments.[1] In some cases, a deathbed confession may be legally admissible in a court of law despite rules on hearsay. Like other types of confessions, some deathbed confessions are false confessions.