People v. Fitzgerald
| Decision Date | 22 March 1887 |
| Citation | 105 N.Y. 146,11 N.E. 378 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. FITZGERALD. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from judgment of the general term of Fourth judicial department.
Jacob Schwartz, for appellant.
John B. Stanchfield, for respondent.
The facts of this extraordinary case are fully stated in the dissenting opinion of HARDIN, J., at general term. We should content ourselves with concurring in that opinion were it not that it simply orders a new trial for errors in the charge and for refusals to charge, while we think that it should have gone further, and have held that the facts of the case did not establish a crime punishable under the statute against body stealing, (Pen. Code, § 311,) under which the prisoner was indicted and convicted, and which is in the following words: This statute describes every kind of ‘body stealing’ known to the law. The addition inserted in the Penal Code, ‘or for the purpose of obtaining a reward for the same,’ was the only substantial change made since the Revised Statutes in the definition of this heinous crime.
The intent of the statute is manifest. It certainly was not intended to apply to exhumations made by legally constituted public authorities, for the purpose of ascertaining whether crime has been committed in producing the death of the person whose body is exhumed. When the exhumation is made, not secretly, but publicly, on open application to the officer of justice charged with the duty of inquiring into the cause of death of any person whose body is brought within his jurisdiction, it is a total misapplication of the statute against body stealing to use it for the purpose of imposing its punishment on all persons concerned in the exhumation, in case any proceedings of the officer under whose direction it was made should be found to be irregular.
The irregularity alleged in this case in the conduct of the coroner is that he did not impanel a jury before he ordered the post mortem examination to be made by the physicians whom he summoned for the purpose. A sufficient number of persons to form a jury was assembled by...
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Crenshaw v. O'Connell
...31 L.R.A. 540; Darcy v. Presbyterian Hospital, 202 N.Y. 259, 95 N.E. 695; St. Francis County v. Cummings, 55 Ark. 419; State of New York v. Fitzgerald, 105 N.Y. 146; Hassard v. Lehane, 135 N.Y.S. 711; Palenske Bruning, 98 Ill.App. 644; Patrick v. Employers Mutual, 118 S.W.2d 116. (2d) The c......
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Gray v. State
...from the constituted authorities, removes the dead body of a relative or friend for reinterment." The case of People v. Fitzgerald. 105 N. Y. 146, 11 N. E. 378, 59 Am. Rep. 483, is the most nearly in point which in our own examination we have been able to find. The facts in that case showed......
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Hayes v. State
...of public justice. It does not appear that it was done in defiance of section 4592, Rev. St. 1898. As said in People v. Fitzgerald, 105 N. Y. 146, 11 N. E. 378, 59 Am. Rep. 483, and approved by this court in Palmer v. Broder, 78 Wis. 483, 47 N. W. 744, this statute was not intended to apply......
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Commonwealth v. Flexer
...in line of duty, as in the instant case, depending upon the circumstances under which it was committed, is the case of People v. Fitzgerald, 105 N.Y. 146, 11 N.E. 378. that case a person, at the instance of the coroner, a legally constituted public officer, removed a dead body from a grave ......