The Knock at the Door cause them to forget their obligations as witnesses, and to feel that they are employed andi'paid as advocates. This is a subject which legislation can regulate, and, as it seems to me, ought to regulate. . . . The law, as it seems to me, ought to put medical experts thoroughly and unmistakably in the class of witnesses by fixing their compensa tion for attendance at court at a reasonable sum, and taxing the amount in the costs, as
in the case of ordinary witnesses, and also by providing that the compensation to be paid to them for services in preparing to give expert evidence shall be such reasonable sum as may be approved by the court in
531
mitted this year, summarized the evils of medical expert testimony in six propositions, three of which were as follows, viz. :— "First. Want of satisfactory standards of ex pertness, with its result of inviting the testimony of charlatans. "Second. The prolongation of trials and the consequent increase of expense on account of the number of witnesses. "Sixth. An unfortunate tendency upon the part of some trial judges to permit incompetent so~called medical experts to testify to opinions predicated upon widely unrelated fact, and under oath to express views which are but the specula tive vagaries of ill-informed minds.
"Of course this report was made with reference to conditions existing in New York. each case, and that any contract for a larger It is manifest that the evils above stated are sum or a contingent fee shall be invalid." all within the common law powers of the justice Schofield goes on to say, however, trial courts, without the aid of statutes. that no single remedy will cure all existing The trial judge determines the competency evils. In fact, he declares the evil of and qualification of all expert witnesses, prejudiced, partisan testimony to be funda subject to very slight control by appellate mentally a moral evil, requiring for its treat courts. At common law he can limit the ment the creation of a deeper conviction, number of medical expert witnesses, pre in the mind of the expert, that it is his duty vent the abuse of the right of cross-examina to testify always in a judicial and impartial tion and the abuse of the right to put hypo If these manner, without overvaluing the success of thetical questions to experts. powers were fully exerted, much good would either party to the suit. And we are in formed that “legislation is not the sole, result. Judge Garrison, of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, in a published address, nor even the principal remedy." has said that it is useless to look to the courts But when Justice Schofield denies the like lihood of legislation ofiering much in the for a remedy because these evils have grown way of remedies, he does not mean to imply up in the courts. The blame does not rest that the common law itself may not afiord wholly upon the trial judges, for in many a large share of its solution. For he says :— states they have been deprived by the legis “A committee of the Bar Association of latures of much of the power which they the State of New York, in its report, sub had by the common law."
The Knock at the Door By EDGAR WHITE "It was not very long, hardly more than a quarter of an hour, before the knock which told that the jury had come to their decision fell as a signal for silence on every car. It is sublime—that sudden pause of a great multitude,
which tells that one soul moves them all."—“Adam Bede," by George Eliot.
THE evidence is all in.
Analytical pyro
technics by the lawyers have closed. Now, we're waiting—waiting with furtive looks towards a certain door to one side of the big room. Near the judge's stand is a group of barris ters, telling of trials in the long ago, relating jokes and laughing. They're waiting, too.
Back the other side the bar rail, in the place reserved
for
spectators,
are
several
men
and women, remnants of the eager crowd that listened last evening till the watchman called the turn of the night.
Waiting, too,
these morbidly curious stragglers. Three or four reporters, among them a woman who does the "human interest" work
