Best Evidence - Law Dictionary Search Results
Allegans suam turpitudinem non est audiendus
Allegans suam turpitudinem non est audiendus. 4 Inst. 279.-(A person alleging his own infamy is not to be heard.)-This maxim of the civil law is no part of the law of evidence in England; and it is doubtful whether it ever was. See Best on Evidence. But a person cannot take advantage of his own wrong, and in equity, the maxim holds good that he who comes into equity must come with clean hands....
Criminal Appeal Act, 1907 (English)
Criminal Appeal Act, 1907 (English) (7 Edw. 7, c. 23), came into force on the 19th April, 1908. For a great number of years the merits and demerits of criminal appeal have been discussed in this country.In 1844 Sir Fitzroy Kelly, in a remarkable speech in the House of Commons, advocated criminal appeal, the claim to which has also been recognized by Starkie, Sir John Holker, and Chief Baron Pollock; and even Blackstone,with whom, as Mr. Lecky has observed, admiration of our national jurisprudence was almost a foible, passed some severe criticisms on the stateof the criminal law of his day. In more recent times Lord James of Hereford (then Sir Henry James) introduced a criminal appeal bill into the House of Commons,which was supported by Lord Russell of Killowen (then Sir Charles Russell). And in 1889 Lord Fitzgerald, when introducing a measure into the House of Lords, said that the absene of any provision for rectifying errors andmistakes in criminal cases constituted a blot upon the c...
Identity
Identity. The being the same person or thing as represented or believed to be.Identitas vera colligitur ex multitudine signorum. Bacon, (True identity collected from a multitude of signs.)See Hubback on Succession, pp. 438 et seq.; Best on Evidence, 10th ed., s. 517, as to identification generally, and ss. 517 A.B.C. for curious cases of mistaken identity--such as the Tichborne Case in 1867-1872, and the beck Casein 1896 and 1904. For forms of evidence and affidavits of identity, see Dan. Ch. Pr.Identity, means the identical nature of two or more things, esp., in patent law, the sameness in two devices of the function performed, the way it is performed, and the result achieved. Under the doctrine of equivalents, infringement may identical to the claimed invention, Black's Law Dictionary 7th Edn., p. 748....
Res inter alios acta alteri nocere non debet
Res inter alios acta alteri nocere non debet (a trans-action between strangers ought not to injure another party), e.g., the sworn evidence of a witness in one cause cannot be made available in another cause between other parties. consult Best on Evidence, bk. 3, pt. 2, ch. 5, where it is pointed out that the maxim, in many varying forms, was well known both in the Civil and Canon Law; and see also Broom's Legal Maxims, citing the Duchess of Kingston's case, (1771) 20 How St Tr 335; 2 Sm LC, and other cases in illustration of the rule, and Higham v. Ridgway, (1808) 10 East, 109; 2 Sm LC, and other cases in which entries of a deceased stranger declarant against his interest, or in the course of his business, have been held admissible, in illustration of the exceptions....
Right to begin
Right to begin. If the affirmative of the issue is on the plaintiff, he, in general, has a right to begin. If in replevin the defendant avow for rent in arrear, and the plaintiff reply reins in arrear, the plaintiff must begin. In any action where the plaintiff seeks to recover damages of an unascertained amount, he is entitled to begin, though the affirmative be with the defendant.In considering, however, which party ought to begin, it is not so much the form of the issue which is to be considered as the substance and effect of it, and the judge will consider what is the substantial fact to be made out, and on whom it lies to make it out. And it seems that, as a general rule, the party entitled to begin is he who would have a verdict against him if no evidence were given on either side.In the Court of Appeal, and in all other civil appeals, the appellant's counsel begins.On an appeal to quarter sessions from the petty sessions, the person who appears in support of the order of the mag...
Voir dire
Voir dire [veritatem dicere, Lat., 'to tell the truth,' voir being the Norman-French for vrai].A sort of preliminary examination by the judge, in which the witness is required to speak the truth with respect to the questions put to him, when, if incompetency appears from his answers, he is rejected, and even if they are satisfactory, the judge may receive evidence to contract them or establish other facts showing the witness to be incompetent, Best on Evidence....
Begin, right to
Begin, right to. See RIGHT TO BEGIN. This right rests with the party on whom is the onus of proving the affirmative. See Best on Evidence, sect. 637....
Commorientes
Commorientes, persons who die by the same accident or upon the same occasion. By English law, there was no presumption of survivorship in such a case, whereas by the Code Napoleon, and the Civil Law generally, there is a presumption that the physically stronger survive the physically weaker. See Wing v. Angrave, (1860) 8 HLC 183, in which a husband, a strong man who could swim well, was swept off the deck of a ship by the same wave which swept off his delicate wife who could not swim, Best on Evidence, s. 410: but now by s. 184 of the (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, in all cases where after 1925 two or more persons have died in circumstances rendering it uncertain which of them survived the other or others, such deaths shall (subject to any order of the Court) for all purposes affecting the title to property be presumed to have occurred in the order of seniority and accordingly the younger shall be deemed to have survived the elder....
Kissing the book
Kissing the book, kissing the New Testament on taking an oath (see that title). This practice, which has of late years been much objected to on sanitary grounds, is peculiar to English Courts, and even in them has not been in use for much more than 150 years; the original practice having been for the witness only to place his hand on the New Testament in order to take the 'corporal oath' (see that title, and see Best on Evidence, 9th Edn., at p. 147).The practice of kissing the thumb, or some part of the Book instead of the Book itself, was emphatically condemned by the late Mr. Justice Byrne at the close of the Michaelmas sittings in 1901 (see Times for Dec. 23), who observed that there was no excuse whatever for a witness refraining from kissing the Book, when by taking advantage of the Oaths Act to swear by uplifted hand he could get rid of the obligation to swear in the ordinary form. The practice of kissing the thumb only, though followed by many to escape infection, is perhaps fo...
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, conjuration; sorcery.The practices of a witch, esp. in black magic; sorcery, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1595.By the Witchcraft Act, 1735 (so styled by the Short Titles act, 1896) (9 Geo. 2, c. 5), 'no prosecution shall be carried on against any person for witchcraft, sorcery, enactments, or conjuration, or for charging another with any such offence in Great Britain'; but it is also enacted that all persons pretending to use any kind of witchcraft, etc., shall upon conviction on indictment suffer one whole year's imprison-ment, and also be obliged to give sureties for good behaviour if the Court thinks fit [R.v. Stephenson, (1904) 68 J.P. 524] See VAGRANT. Prior to this Act witchcraft was a capital offence (see 1 & 2 Jac. 1, c. 12), and a woman and her daughter aged nine years were hanged at Huntingdon for selling their souls to Stan as recently as 1716, this being the last execution in England for witchcraft. Pope Alexander the Sixth nominated a commission against...
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