Misdirection as to Evidence of Physicians

Justice Stephen further summed up: “The witness (Dr. Stevenson) stated: ‘I should say more arsenic was administered on the 3d of May.’” It will be seen, by a reference to Dr. Stevenson’s evidence, that Dr. Stevenson did not say this.

HON. JOHN HAY,
American Secretary of State, 1898—

Dr. Humphreys was the only medical man in attendance at that time. The only symptoms on Friday, the 3d, were that he had “vomited twice.” At the inquest Dr. Humphreys said as to this:

Q. “Did he say anything about his lunch on the previous day, Thursday, the 2d?”

A. “Yes; he said some inferior sherry had been put into it, and that it had made him as bad as ever again.”

And that also appears in Dr. Stevenson’s evidence at the trial:

“He told the doctor he had not been well since the previous day, when I learn he had his lunch at the office.”

It can not be suggested that the fact that the man vomited twice on Friday night was attributable to any arsenic taken at midday on Thursday, for Dr. Stevenson testified that the vomiting, which is a symptom of arsenic, usually follows the administration in about half an hour.

Dr. Carter, who was not called in to the patient until Tuesday, May 7th, in his evidence, however, suggested that:

“I judge that the fatal dose must have been given on Friday, the 3d, but a dose might have been given after that. When he was so violently ill on the Friday, I thought it would be from the effects of the fatal dose, but there might have been subsequent doses”; and in cross-examination he explained that he had made this suggestion about the fatal dose because: “I was told he was unable to retain anything on his stomach for several days.”

It is submitted that the judge, when summing up, MISDIRECTED the jury by ignoring entirely the evidence and substituting for it this reckless suggestion of Dr. Carter’s.