[71]. Elements of Juridical or Forensic Medicine.
[72]. Newgate Calendar.
[73]. See Maclaurin’s Crim. Ca. p. 71. where this circumstance is alluded to.
[74]. By the Scottish law, in part founded on that of the Romans, a person against whom the judgment of the Court has been executed, can suffer no more in future, but is thenceforward totally exculpated; and it is likewise held, that the marriage is dissolved by the execution of the convicted party. Margaret Dickson then, having been convicted and executed, as above mentioned, the king’s advocate could prosecute her no farther, but he filed a bill in the high court of Judiciary against the sheriff, for omitting to fulfil the law. The husband of this revived convict, however, married her publicly a few days after her resuscitation; and she strenuously denied the crime for which she had suffered.
[75]. The Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench is the principal Coroner in the kingdom, and may, if he pleases, exercise the jurisdiction of a coroner in any part of the Realm. 4 Rep. 57.
[76]. Except in case of persons dying in jail, the Coroner must not hold unnecessary inquests on the bodies of those who have died in the ordinary course of nature. “And the Court of King’s Bench, on two several occasions within my own memory, blamed the Coroners of Norfolk and Anglesea, for holding repeated and unnecessary inquests, for the sake of enhancing their fees, on bodies and parts of bodies which were cast up by the sea shore, without the smallest probability or suspicion of the deaths happening in any other manner than by the unfortunate perils of the sea.” 1 East. P.C. 382. See ib. the case of Rex v. Harrison, for extorting money for not holding an inquest.
[77]. For this purpose the Coroner issues a precept to the constable of such townships to return a competent number of jurors, viz. not less than twelve. 2 Hale, P.C. 59. 62. 1 East. P.C. 380.
[78]. But this power should be used with discretion. On a late occasion, the Judge severely reprobated the conduct of a magistrate, who had committed a poor lad to await the assizes, in company of notorious thieves and other desperate characters, because he had been the innocent witness of a felony, and was too poor to find recognizance.
[79]. Thus in the case of Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey, much blood might have been spared, and much political controversy avoided, if it had been possible to determine whether the murder had taken place in the field where the body was found, or at Somerset House, as charged by witnesses who afterwards confessed their perjury.
[80]. “It is true that the statute does in terms only require the coroner to put in writing the effect of the evidence. But this must not be taken to give him a latitude, such as hath been but too often taken by persons of this description to the great perversion of truth and justice, of putting down, not the words of the witnesses, but his own conception of their tendency. It is doubtless the meaning of the act, that the examination of the witnesses should be taken down with the greatest possible accuracy as to all material points of the inquiry: otherwise one great benefit of the act, which is to enable the Court to compare the examination with the evidence, must be defeated. The effect mentioned therein, means the true and genuine sense of the evidence, as delivered in detail, not indeed in letters, syllables, or even words; though these should not be needlessly departed from; but the fair and obvious meaning of the words spoken, and not the final result of the evidence. Complaints have in my own memory been made by judges on the circuits of the culpable neglect of coroners in this respect, and threats of exemplary punishment holden out to them, to prevent a repetition of the same abuse in future.” 1 East. P.C. 384.