Magistrates and coroners. Report of a select committee of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Southampton, appointed at the midsummer quarter session, 1857, and a letter from the County coroners in reply.

Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Magistrates and coroners. Report of a select committee of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Southampton, appointed at the midsummer quarter session, 1857, and a letter from the County coroners in reply. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    peculiar circumstances provided for by 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. 24], nor even the circumstance that the death was sudden; there ought to he a reasonable suspicion that the party came to hi.^ death by violent or unnatural means; the Coroner must, therefore, before he summons a jury, make some inquiry ; [and if, on that inquiry, he Jinds that the circumstances which occasioned the death happened out of his jurisdiction, and that there is no reasonahle suspicion of murder or manslaughter [the 2 and, 3 Edward VI. being confined to cases of that nature], he ought to abstain from summoning a jury, and the body, in order to an inquest, must be removed into the county where the circumstance took j)lace f The Court quashed the inquisition on the ground that the Coroner of a borough, as the law then stood, had no jurisdiction to inquire into a case of death occasioned b3^ an accident happening out of the borough. Nothing can be more clear, therefore, than that the only question raised and decided by the case cited was one of mere local jurisdiction, and had nothing whatever to do with the general right or duty of Coroners to hold inquests in other cases. Not much less unfair is the manner of quoting in the Report, as from the “ able Avork of the late Lord Chief Justice,'’' a passage inserted, Avithout any authority, in a book published nearly thirty years ago, Avhen the author Avas a junior barrister, AATiting (to use his own Avords) Avith unfeigned diffidence, and conscious of many imperfections, of Avhich Ave Avill noAv proceed to prove, out of his OAvn mouth, that the passage in ques- tion is one. For at pages 21, 22, and 23 of the same ‘‘ able Avork, Ave find it expressly stated that the duty of taking inquests is regulated and defined by the statute de officio Coronatoris 4 EdAvard I. st. 2, Avhich enacts, “ That the Coroner, upon information, shall go to the place Avhere any be slain or suddenly dead, summon a jury, and inquire into the case, and how many soever