Case ID: ga-app_18/html/0523-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Hodges, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

7215.
    HERNDON v. JONES COUNTY.
    The word “witnesses” means one witness or more, in the sense in which it is used in the requirement that “coroners shall take inquest . . of all violent, sudden, or casual deaths, when there are no eye-witnesses to the killing or cause of the death, and such death occurs under suspicious circumstances” (Renal Code, § 1337), and in the provision that “No inquest shall be held over any dead body when the cause of the death was violence, or accident, or act of God, in the presence of witnesses,” etc. (Penal Code, § 1338). The inquest for which a fee was claimed by the coroner in this case, and which was held over the body of a person killed in the presence of one eye-witness, was not necessary, and the county was not liable to the coroner for the fee.
    Decided September 15, 1916.
    Certiorari; from Jones superior court — Judge Park. November 11, 1915.
    Herndon sued Jones county for $10 as his fee for holding an inquest, as coroner, over the dead body of one Middlebrooks. From the evidence it appeared that Middlebrooks was killed by Morton in self-defense, in the presence of one witness; and the fact that this witness was present and all the other facts relating to the homicide were known to the coroner before the inquest was held. The •judge of the superior court, on certiorari, held that the county was not liable.
    
      J. B. Jackson, for plaintiff.
    
      F. H. Johnson, for defendant.
   Hodges, J.

The Penal Code, § 1337, provides that “Coroners shall take inquest . . of all violent, sudden, or casual deaths, when there are no eye-witnesses to the killing or cause of the death, and such death occurs under suspicious circumstances.” By section 1338 of the Penal Code it is provided that “no inquest shall be held over any dead body when the cause of the death was violence, or accident, or act of God, in the presence of witnesses, unless some person makes affidavit of facts raising a suspicion of foul play, when an inquest'shall be had, but at the expense of the party making the affidavit.” The question before this court for adjudication is: Do the words, “when there are no eye-witnesses,” in section 1337, supra, and the words, “in the presence of witnesses,” in section 1338, supra, mean that it requires more than one witness to the death before the coroner is divested of his ancient and unlimited jurisdiction to inquire into the cause of death, and expound “crowner’s quest law?” It requires only one witness to effect this result and deprive the officer of the fee incident to the inquiry. Among the rules prescribed for the construction of “all statutory enactments in this State,” it is provided that “the singular or plural number shall each include the other, unless expressly excluded.” Civil Code, § 4, par. 4; Penal Code, § 1, par. 4.

Judgment affirmed.