Opinion ID: 2199758
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Permitting a physician to testify as to the result of a post-mortem examination and as to the cause of death.

Text: The county physician who performed the post-mortem on the victim was ill at the time of the trial and was not available as a witness. Dr. Read, chief pathologist of the Cooper Hospital in Camden, had assisted in the performance of the post-mortem and he testified as to the cause of death based on what he had observed at the time. It is urged there was not sufficient identification of the body on which the autopsy was performed. This point was not made at the trial and is being urged for the first time here. A perusal of the record indicates it has no merit. Identification was abundantly proved by the coroner and by Dr. Hunsiker, resident physician, who had treated Booris for days before his death. However, it is said that the testimony of Dr. Read should have been excluded since under N.J.S.A. 40:21-24, 25, 26.6 and 26.7 the county physician, when there is one elected and qualified, has the exclusive right to make all views and inquiries heretofore made by coroners and to determine the cause of death of a person who comes to his death by murder. It should be noted that no objection is or could be made to the doctor's qualifications as an expert to testify as to the cause of death. He had himself performed more than 4,000 autopsies and was eminently qualified from the standpoint of background and experience to testify in the instant case. Moreover, he testified from direct observation made while he was assisting in the performance of the post-mortem. The scope and purposes of the statutory scheme upon which defendants rely quite plainly have nothing to do with the question before us. The statutes referred to above simply deprive coroners and justices of the peace from the rights and powers formerly vested in them to make views, inquiries and investigations into the cause of death in certain enumerated cases, and install them exclusively in the county physician. Thus, it was intended to do no more than settle the obligations and duties as between these classes of officials. We have searched in vain, however, to find any prohibition therein which would prevent a duly qualified physician from testifying as to what he observed while he was assisting or was present with the county physician when the latter was performing his official duties. If we place the shoe on the other foot and test its logical consequences, it will become quite apparent why the interpretation advanced by the defendants is wholly impractical and not in accord with the intendment of the statute. Thus, assume the defendant had ascertained that Dr. Read had concluded from his observation that the county physician was gravely in error and instead of death being caused by gunshot wounds it was occasioned by heart failure unrelated to trauma; can there be any doubt that he could have so testified if called by the defendants for that purpose? To ask the question is to answer it.