No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 109 



able criniiual lawyers who have defended criminals charged with 

 grave offences if there was any warrant for such a precedent would 

 have brought it in force. Take for instance a murder case. The 

 Commonwealth claiming that they found on the prisoner a bloody 

 shirt, and that blood stains are human blood, not chicken blood, or 

 blood which he received butchering a "hog, but human blood; now 

 we all know that the expert on the part of the defense coach the 

 lawyers for the defense while they cross examine the experts of the 

 Commonwealth, but I do not think there would be any warrant for 

 a defendant charged with murder to say you must tear that shirt in 

 two and you must give my chemist one-half of the alleged blood 

 stains so that they can prepare a defense; or, to put it more mildly, 

 that they can have the alleged blood stains analyzed. I do not 

 know of any such precedent, and the very fact that Mr. Baldridge, 

 after diligent search, has been unable to find one to my mind is 

 proof that there is no warrant to force the Commonwealth to pro- 

 duce the evidence they are going to submit. As I said before, in a 

 civil suit, under certain equitable rules, each side must apprize the 

 other side of what evidence the}' are going to use, but I do not think 

 it would be fair to say toi the Commonwealth you must give the 

 defendant all your side of the case so that he can examine and 

 ransack it, and at the same time allow the defendant to keep his 

 mouth shut. It seems to me that would be giving a defendant an 

 unfair advantage, and it seems to me it would be unfair to compel 

 the Commonwealth to allow a defendant to subject their samples 

 to examination in advance, and I will overrule the application for 

 the compelling of the production of such samples. As to experi- 

 ments in open court Tdo not knoAv to what extent I will go about a 

 matter of that kind. I did rule in the formaldehyde cases where 

 Mr. Hicks wanted to take a drink of tlie preservative, and wanted 

 the Court to take a drink of it, and let the jury take a drink of it, 

 I did rule that he could take a drink, but the Court would not, and 

 would not have the jury do so. Mr. Ilicks was going to turn the 

 Court into a laboratory, and I think we said we would not have any 

 laboratory here in court. I do not know to what, extent I would 

 go if there was an effort on the part of the defendant to examine 

 samples by microscopic tests — I will leave that matter open." 



r hereby certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript of the 

 opinion of the Court in the case of the Commonwealth vs. J. A. 

 Roller, et al., in re, rule for turning over portion of sample taken by 

 Commonw(>alth. 



J. F. MECK, 



Official Stenographer, 

 Courts of Blair County. 



JAMES FOUST, 

 Dairy and Food Commissioner. 



