OF THE LAW OF EVIDENCE IN THEIR APPLICATION TO THE TRIAL OF CRIMINAL CASES AT COMMON LAW AND UNDER THE CRIMINAL CODES OF THE SEVERAL STATES. IN ONE VOLUME. BY FRANK S. RICE, COUNSELOR AT LAW, AUTHOR OF EVIDENCE IN CIVIL CASES, 2 VOLS. THE LAWYERS' CO-OPERATIVE PUBLISHING CO. ROCHESTER, N. Y. LIBRARY OF THE A.36318 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-thico. by THE LAWYERS' CO-OPERATIVE PUBLISHING CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. E. R. ANDREWS, PRINTER, ROCHESTER, N. Y. PREFACE. In concluding the examination of a subject which has engrossed my attention for many years, a few explanatory paragraphs as to the scope and nature of the undertaking will gratify one individual at least, and find their warrant for appearing, in an immemorial custom that now has all the force of a vested right. The only work published in this country avowedly dedicated to the consideration of criminal evidence, is Dr. Wharton's exceedingly able treatise written in 1846, and which reached its last edition in 1884. This treatise while in every way an admirable presentation of the subject as reflected by the learning of fifty years ago, has encountered the infelicities that time imposes upon every text-book, however meritorious and sufficiently emphasizes in its present condition the urgent call for a revised and modernized view of a great subject, and a re-examination of former postulates that are now pronounced untenable. It is universally conceded that the law of evidence in many of its relations to the rules of pleading and practice has assumed, within the last twenty years, an importance but indifferently apprehended by early writers. The laborious researches of the celebrated commission which compiled the Anglo-Indian Evidence Act, resulted in a new analysis and classification of the law. These results have met with very general indorsement by both the American and English judiciary "who now regard the law of evidence as respects the relevancy of facts from the standpoint of inductive logic, as systematized and refined by John Stuart Mill. The relevancy of evidence is considered in their view, and properly so, as a particular case of the process of induction; the process of inferring the unknown from the known. A fact, if it is to be received in evidence as relevant, must base its claims to consideration by the jury, upon grounds identical with those upon which a fact must claim consideration at the hands of a scientist when investigating physical facts. It must be a fact having a logical place in the chain of causation with reference to the ultimate fact to be proved." Commissioners Report, Proposed Code of Evidence of the state of New York. |