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The Green Bag
to juries might be analyzed. Did he refer to the case of a murder trial, for example, in which expert witnesses of proved skill and disinterestedness testify on opposite sides of the question of insanity, it being an example of doctors disagreeing without being hired to dis agree? Or did he refer to the entirely different case of so-called "expert" evi dence being adduced by charlatans who impose upon the jury the actual deter mination of the medical problem of insanity? In the latter of these cases, the determination of insanity by a jury is farcical. In the former case it sug gests farce less than comedy, for there the humor of the situation arises from the disagreement of the experts rather than from the incongruity of the task forced on the jury. The evil is to be found in the farcical, not in the comic situation, for an honest disagreement of able experts is not a condition calling for resistance or intervention. We con clude, therefore, that Dr. Lamb referred to the inability of juries to detect the incompetent or tricky witness. If so, is not the jury itself no less responsible than the system which permits that sort of witness to appear before it? We live in an age which is gradually awakening to the value of expert opinion in every department of life. Jurispru dence cannot help share this tendency, and expert evidence must come to play a part of growing importance in the trial of causes of every description. A higher, or if you prefer, a modified stand ard of intelligence will be demanded of the future citizen, to enable him to meet everyday responsibilities thrust upon him. Hence we must in time look not simply to the bench and bar for a solution of the problem of the abuse of expert evidence, but we are to look also to the jury. We must have upon our juries intelligent men who are able in
some degree to estimate the weight of expert evidence and who are able to distinguish between real experts and charlatans. In capital cases in which the defense of insanity is likely to be interposed, we must exact greater intel ligence from the jury, and in most other cases great care must be taken, and perhaps additional legislative measures must be adopted, to impanel juries with this object more clearly in view than it has been ever before. Bench and bar can do much as representative of public opinion; but the jury has a function of great importance to perform in making our criminal procedure more dignified, and if we could only establish a higher standard for juries, many evils of which the abuse of medical testimony is only one might soon disappear before the advance of more enlightened and ele vated sentiment. LINCOLN THE LAWYER Current magazines are flooded with Lincolniana, and the public appetite is surfeited with stories of the Martyr President. A law magazine perhaps has a better right than some others to refer to Lincoln, but we have recognized, with suitable humility, the impossibility of favoring readers with any legal stories which are to be described as recent, even in the sense in which the word is properly used in speaking of the last issues of English newspapers to arrive, or notes of the latest decided cases pub lished in the law journals. Lincoln's memory, however, should be particularly. honored by lawyers, than whom there is no class of men more admiring of his upright sense of justice and forbearing. patience and wisdom in administering it. While Lincoln, as Mr. Frederick Trevor Hill remarks, "was not only not a profound student of the law, he was
