If his Inquisition be quashed, and a melius Inquirendum is granted, that Inquisition must be taken by the Sheriffs or Commissioners, upon affidavits.[[87]] 1 Danv. Abr. 210. Salk. 190.
The filing of a coroner’s inquest may also be stopped for mismanagement. 1 Mod. 82. If he conceal felonies he shall be fined, and suffer one year’s imprisonment. 3 Ed. 1 c. 9. In Lord Buckhurst’s case a coroner not returning his inquisition of murder to the next gaol delivery, but suppressing it, was discharged from his office, and fined £100. 1 Kebl. 280.
If a coroner be convicted of extortion, wilful neglect of duty, or misdemeanor in his office, the Court before whom he shall be convicted, may adjudge that he shall be removed from his office. 25 Geo. 2. c. 29.
And lastly, by the writ De Coronatore exonerando, F.N.B. 163. 164: he may be discharged for negligence, or insufficiency, in the discharge of his duty, and when coroners are so far engaged in any other public business that they cannot attend the office; or if they be disabled by old age or disease, or have not sufficient lands, or live in an inconvenient part of the county. 2 Inst. 32. 2 Hawk. P.C. c. 9. s. 12. But if any such writ be obtained on an untrue suggestion, the coroner may procure a commission out of Chancery to enquire thereof; and the king may grant a supercedeas of the writ. Reg. Orig. 177. 178. F.N.B. 164. As the coroner’s is an office of freehold, the Court of Chancery will not suffer the writ to issue, unless on affidavit that the defendant has been served with notice of the petition for it. 3 Atk. 184. On the election of a new coroner the office of the old one is ipso facto extinguished.
We have entered more fully into this description of the office and duties of coroner in general, as we deem the due execution of them to be of the utmost importance to the public welfare; not indeed intending it as a guide to coroners themselves, for to that purpose it would be insufficient; but to give some insight into the nature and character of the office, to those who may, from time to time, be called upon to aid its administration. It is however necessary for us to add that there are some exceptions to the above mentioned rules, arising out of local customs and peculiar jurisdictions; thus the Lord Mayor of London is by virtue of his office, coroner within the City, and the Court is holden before him or his deputy. 4 Inst. 250. And other places, as some of the Royal residences, &c. have their separate coroners; but all, whatever the mode of election or appointment, are in cases of misconduct subject to the jurisdiction of the Court of King’s Bench.
SUICIDE.
Self-murder is ranked among the higher crimes, being a peculiar species of felony, as implied in the technical term felo de se. To constitute this offence, the party must be in his senses, else it is no crime; but this excuse ought not to be strained to that length to which our coroner’s juries are too apt to carry it,[[88]] viz. that the very act of suicide is an evidence of insanity; as if every man who acts contrary to reason, had no reason at all; for the same argument would prove every other criminal non compos, as well as the self-murderer. The law very rationally judges, that every melancholy or hypochondriac fit does not deprive a man of the capacity of discerning right from wrong; and, therefore, if a real lunatic kills himself in a lucid interval, he is felo de se as much as another man. 1 Hales, P. C. 412. 1 Hawk. P. C. c. 27, s. 3.
As to the punishment which human laws inflict on this crime, they can only act upon what the criminal has left behind him,—his reputation and fortune; on the former, by an ignominious burial in the highway, with a stake driven through his body; on the latter, by the forfeiture of all his goods and chattels to the king.
In this as well as all other felonies, the offender must be of the age of discretion, and compos mentis; and therefore an infant killing himself, under the age of discretion, (of which some extraordinary instances have lately been related in the public journals) or a lunatic during his lunacy, cannot be a felo de se. 1 Hawk. P. C. c. 27, s. 1. Crom. 30, a 6, 31; Hales P. C. 28; Dalt. c. 92; 3 Inst. 54.
He who kills another, though at his own desire or command, is a murderer;[[89]] and the person killed is not looked upon as a felo de se, in as much as his assent was merely void, being against the law of God and man; 1 Hawk. P. C. c. 27, s. 6; Keilw. 136; Moor 754. But query, as he is the guilty cause of his own death, is he not a felon? for if the question had been of the death of another, his consent to it would have been equally against the laws of God and man; yet if poison were given by his direction or command, even though he were not present, and might have repented, it would be murder, much more then, when he actually assists at the perpetration.