Volume 1

Taylor's principles and practice of medical jurisprudence / [Alfred Swaine Taylor].

  • Alfred Swaine Taylor
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Taylor's principles and practice of medical jurisprudence / [Alfred Swaine Taylor]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    75/962 page 57
    Schedule shall be replaced by “ shall on the application of either party.” In criminal trials, where life is concerned, no provision is made by the English law for enabling a judge to take the opinions of one or more medical or scientific experts not connected with the case, although such a practice would be attended with great public benefit. If there is conflicting medical evidence he can only direct an acquittal. Such a result is little less than a scandal to our criminal ]aw pro¬ cedures. DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE Documentary evidence in courts of law consists of— 1. Letters, Affidavits, Plans, etc., etc., with which the medical witness has absolutely nothing to do. They are matters of pure law, and need no comment here. 2. Notes and Depositions, about which sufficient has been said supra. 3. Dying Declarations.—These are the deliberate statements of a person who is actually dying (moribundus, not moriturus), and about them a medical witness must know everything, inasmuch as it is almost always a medical man who is responsible for obtaining one where possible ; this is certainly the case in accidents which prove rapidly fatal; and in those which prove fatal at some more distant period it is a medical man’s duty to see that notice is given to some legal authorities that proper attention (presence of witnesses, etc.) m^y be given to the subject, and it is also his duty to note the mental as well as the bodily condition of such patients at the time when dying declarations are made. With regard to the admission of dying declarations as evidence, there are certain points of law which are fixed and invariable ; there are others upon which decisions of a somewhat variable nature have been made from time to time. The fixed and invariable rules are— 1. That they cannot be used in civil cases, but only in criminal ones. 2. That they can only be used in trials (for homicide) in which the death of the person who made them is the actual subject of inquiry. 3. That they can only be accepted as evidence as to the actual circumstances of the death, and for nothing else. 4. That the death of a person making a dying declaration must have actually ensued. 5. That a dying declaration may be made orally or in writing, but, if the former, it must be written down by the person receiving it, either at once or with as little delay as possible, and also, if possible, read over to the dying person and signed by him, or his assent and agree¬ ment in some way obtained. The points open for discussion and decision, of both of which they have received a good deal, are—
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