A2:.
Live
three days ago a stabbing case occurred in which death resulted from the wound, and I considered it necessary to request Dr Wanny to make the post mortem examination, which I did by the usual warrant which also directed his attendance at the Inquest.
Dr Wherry, instead of carrying out the order, directed Dr Marques to make the post-mortem examination and did not appear at the Inquest, nor give reason to the Coroner for not doing so.
Yesterday I again had occasion to call upon Dr Wherry to make a post mortem examination; and the duty was again assigned by him to Dr Marques without any explanation being offered.
Dr Wherry appears to altogether misconceive the functions and powers of the Coroner and to imagine that a formally issued warrant of the Court may be treated with the same lightness as an ordinary written order.
He forgets that a Coroner's Court is a Court of Justice and that any order of the Court has the same weight and authority as an order from the Supreme or any other Court and is made in the interests of Justice.
It would be ridiculous if Dr Wherry were allowed to regard himself as a kind of free agent with the power of determining whether he is to obey or not to obey a formal order of the Court, and I must respectfully request that he be told that if the order is given he has to obey it.
I am aware that the power the Coroner has to request Dr Wherry's assistance is excessively unpalatable to that gentleman, and it is exercised most sparingly, only in cases where from the preliminary reports made it seems possible that points may arise in anticipation of which it is well to be fortified beforehand with evidence on points which it is well to be prepared on for the inquiry by the jury.