Page:1862 Territory of Dakota Session Laws.pdf/117

100 . 311. The husband can, in no case, be a witness for or against the wife, nor the wife for or against the husband, unless the contract or facts to be sworn to are in the exclusive knowledge of such husband or wife, as agent or otherwise, in which case but one can testify, and unless in a criminal proceeding for a crime committed by the one against the other.

. 312. Neither husband or wife can be examined in any case as to any communication made by the one to the other, while married, nor as to any fact learned in consequence of the marriage relation; nor shall they, after such relation ceases, be permitted to reveal, in testimony, any such communication or fact.

. 313. No attorney, counsellor, physician, surgeon, minister of the gospel, or priest, shall be allowed, in giving testimony, to disclose any confidential communication, properly intrusted to him in his professional capacity, and necessary and proper to enable him to discharge the functions of his office according to the usual course of practice or discipline.

. 314. The prohibitions of the last section do not apply to cases where the party, in whose favor they are enacted, waives the rights thereby conferred.

. 315. A public officer cannot be examined as to communications made to him in official confidence, when the public interests would suffer by the disclosure.

. 316. A witness is not excused from answering a question upon the mere ground that he would be thereby subjected to a civil liability.

. 317. But when the matter sought to be elicited would tend to render him criminally liable, or to expose him to public ignominy, he is not compelled to answer, except as provided in the next section.

. 318. A witness may be interrogated as to his previous convictions for a felony. But no other proof of such conviction is competent except the record thereof.

. 319. When the part of an act, declaration, conversation, or writing is given in evidence by one party, the whole on the same subject may be inquired into by the other; thus, when a letter is read, all other letters on the same subject between the same parties may be given. And when a