Court Opinion

ID: 9581571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:16:23.077088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:05.669501
License: Public Domain

Evans, Judge,
concurring specially. I concur fully in the judgment. But I wish to add that as to the last enumeration of error — objecting to allowing medical and hospital bills, x-rays and anatomical sketches to be taken into the jury room — that there was no impropriety whatever in sending this evidence out with the jury while the verdict was being considered. It is true that interrogatories, depositions, confessions, etc., as well as papers which contain some admissible writings and some hearsay statements, are properly kept out of the jury room. But these are the exception and not the rule. The purpose of introducing documentary evidence is to allow the jury to scan it, study it, and gain such impressions therefrom as are properly deducible, and this can best be done inside the jury room. It would make for confusion and delay to ask each juror to study the documentary evidence during the progress of the trial. It would be ridiculous to admit documentary evidence but not allow each juror to get his hands upon it and look at it closely. The documentary evidence here does not fall within the prohibited exception and was properly allowed to go out with the jury.