People v. Murphy

Citation101 N.Y. 126,4 N.E. 326
PartiesPEOPLE v. MURPHY.
Decision Date19 January 1886
CourtNew York Court of Appeals

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Horace S. Bennett, for appellant, William Thomas Murphy.

Joseph W. Taylor, for the People.

FINCE, J.

We are of the opinion that section 834 of the Code of Civil Procedure is applicable to criminal actions, and that whatever possible doubt may have attended the question is fairly dispelled by section 392 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The confidential character of disclosures by a patient to his attending physician was established before the Code by statute, and in terms which, beyond reasonable question, applied to all actions, whether civil or criminal. 3 Rev. Laws, (6th Ed.) 671, § 119; People v. Stout, 3 Park. Crim. L. 670. That statute was substantially incorporated into the Civil Code in language broad enough to justify the same general application as that which characterized the older statute; and the further provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure already referred to seems to us intended to settle the question. No doubt upon that subject was intimated in Pierson v. People, 79 N. Y. 424; but in that decision the statute was construed, and we held it did not cover a case where it was invoked solely for the protection of a criminal, and not at all for the benefit of the patient, and where the latter was dead, so that an express waiver of the privilege had become impossible. The present is a different case. Here the patient was living, and the disclosure which tended to convict the prisoner inevitably tended to convict her of a crime, or cast discredit and disgrace upon her. We have no doubt upon the evidence that between her and the witness whose disclosure was resisted there was established the relation of physician and patient. Although he was selected by the public prosecutor and sent by him, yet she accepted his services in his professional character, and he renderedthem in the same character. She was at liberty to refuse, and might have declined, his assistance; but when she accepted it she had a right to deem him her physician, and treat him accordingly. It follows that the exception to his disclosure of what he learned while thus in professional attendance was well taken.

But if his evidence had been admissible as being competent, another error was committed. He was sent to the patient after the crime was complete, when the abortion had been accomplished, and the patient was merely suffering the physical consequences of the crime. Although she herself was a party to that crime, and relatively to it was an accomplice of the accused, and, so to speak, a co-conspirator with him, yet her declarations narrative of a past occurrence, and constituting no part of the res gestae, were not admissible. These declarations were excluded by the court upon the objection of the accused, and properly excluded; but, notwithstanding, the attending physician was allowed to express his opinion as a medical expert that an abortion had been produced, founding that opinion not only upon what he observed of the physical condition of the woman, but upon all her statements, and upon the history of the case as derived from her. The opinion of the general term concedes the error of such evidence, but insists that the opinion was founded upon her statements merely of the ‘locality of the pain, the condition of the injured part, and so on.’ We understand what occurred differently. When the...

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36 cases
  • People v. Preston
    • United States
    • New York County Court
    • July 22, 1958
    ...such evidence as was here received, and thus to protect the murderer rather than shield the memory of his victim.' In People v. Murphy, 1886, 101 N.Y. 126, 4 N.E. 326, the patient victim was living. The prosecution was for abortion. The physician was sent by the prosecutor. The defendant ob......
  • Triangle Lumber Company v. Acree
    • United States
    • Arkansas Supreme Court
    • April 20, 1914
    ... ... his opinion is founded in part upon the information acquired ... during the existence of that relationship. People v ... Murphy, 101 N.Y. 126, 4 N.E. 326 ...          But ... nothing in these questions or answers would indicate that ... this ... ...
  • State v. Law
    • United States
    • Wisconsin Supreme Court
    • June 4, 1912
    ...assignments of error 4, 5, 6, and 7 the following: Sections 1436, 4075, and 4078d, Stats. 1898, with amendments; People v. Murphy, 101 N. Y. 126, 4 N. E. 326, 54 Am. Rep. 661. In behalf of the state: Hauk v. State, 148 Ind. 238, 46 N. E. 127, 47 N. E. 465;Seifert v. State, 160 Ind. 464, 67 ......
  • Chi., R. I. & P. R. Co. v. Jackson
    • United States
    • Oklahoma Supreme Court
    • January 9, 1917
    ...A. 199; Grangers'' Life Ins. Co. v. Brown, 57 Miss. 308, 34 Am. Rep. 446; Holloway v. Kansas City, 184 Mo. 19, 82 S.W. 89; People v. Murphy, 101 N.Y. 126, 4 N.E. 326. 54 Am. Rep. 661; Lush v. McDaniel, 35 N.C. 485, 57 Am. Dec. 566. Aside from the question of the statements in proper cases b......
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