Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/100

 liiliijlliliiipi

MEDICAL EXPERT TESTIMONY THE meeting of the New York State Bar Association served a good purpose in drawing the attention of lawyers to three evils which are by no means confined to the case of one state. They are the abuse of the right of appeal in criminal cases, by means of technicalities subversive of justice, the abuse of the writ of habeas corpus in the case of criminals improperly released from institutions for the insane, and the grave evil that has arisen with reference to medical expert testimony. The committee in charge of this last subject made an important contribu tion to the fruitful work of the meeting, and while the results attained may not have been more important than some other matters, probably no subject dis cussed can be said to possess a livelier interest for the profession. The bill proposed by the committee as a means of restricting the introduc tion *Jof expert testimony without in vading any constitutional rights, and adopted by vote of the meeting for presentation to the Legislature, is not ostensibly anything more than an at tempt at the initiation of reform. The committee was careful to explain that the regulation of expert testimony was not a matter in which the Legislature could interfere by means of severe re strictions. Instead, it was a matter primarily for the bench and bar to deal with. The suggestions were that the

bench should seek to remedy matters by clear definitions to juries of the dis tinction between an expert proved to be such, and an expert whose claim to be one is predicated solely upon the fact that he is paid for his testimony, while the bar could greatly help by maintaining so high a standard of ethics as should prevent employment of cor rupt or incompetent "experts" and im proper methods of cross-examination. These suggestions seem to us worth something at least. The actual amount of good which could come from the adoption of the proposed statute is uncertain. Any one who has wrestled with the problem of selecting a family physician, so skillful as to be safely relied upon in any emer gency, knows the extreme difficulty of selecting a real expert from a number of reputable persons of high rank in the community. The proposed statute places upon the Appellate Division justices a similar task. It would be no easy matter for them to designate the leading experts of the district, in the sense of real scientific capacity as opposed to a mere reputation for skill, and that is the duty which they would have to perform if the statute were to accomlish positive benefit. Moreover, medical science has not attained to so high and orderly a development as other sciences and for this reason the task would be doubly difficult. Dr. Lamb's remark about the farce of leaving the determination of insanity