Page:The Law and the Doctor Vol 2 - The Physician as Witness.djvu/52

46 In this case the defendant was on trial for the murder of his wife; the only question at issue was the sanity of the defendant. The district attorney went to New York City and presented the case to a well-known physician and specialist in mental diseases, and asked him for his opinion as to the defendant's sanity. The physician informed the district attorney that he could not give a satisfactory opinion without seeing and examining the defendant, and, after a request for terms, said that he would go to the place of trial, examine the defendant and attend the trial as witness for five hundred dollars. In passing upon the propriety of such an arrangement the Court expressed itself as follows:—

If, in a criminal trial, where every reasonable safeguard and protection is thrown about the accused, an arrangement of this character will not be considered an irregularity, much less will such an arrangement be subject to like criticism in a civil suit.

An arrangement with counsel for such special services must be free from champerty, or it will be void and unenforceable. Accordingly, a contract which provides that the compensation of the witness shall be commensurate with or dependent upon the success of the party in whose behalf he testifies, is objectionable and cannot be enforced.