_Deliberation by Jury and Return of an Inquisition._—After the evidence has been taken, and the jury instructed in the law by the coroner, the jury should retire to deliberate upon their verdict. During such deliberation and until they have arrived at their verdict the coroner should not be present in the room where the jury is deliberating. After they have agreed on their verdict it should be reduced to writing, and the coroner is bound to accept it as final in his court. The inquisition should then be signed by the coroner and jury.[551] If the inquest is signed by the coroner and duly certified by him, the jurors having signed by making their cross marks, and the whole being certified by the coroner, his certificate of the signatures of the jurors is sufficient and the inquisition is properly made.[552] If several jurors on the inquest have the same christian and surname, it is not necessary in the caption of the inquisition to distinguish them by abode or otherwise.[553] The law requiring the coroner to make a return of the testimony with the inquisition cannot be satisfied short of some official certificate indicating that the witnesses named were sworn before him, to the matter insisted on as evidence against a prisoner. At least if there be no formal authentication, there should be proof _aliunde_ that the memorandum presents the testimony of the witness truly.[554] III. THE EFFECT OF THE EVIDENCE AND VERDICT. Under the common law formerly, a coroner’s inquisition was equivalent to an indictment by a grand jury upon which the accused might be tried. But in this country no person can be tried upon a coroner’s inquisition, yet the inquisition of a coroner’s jury finding a person guilty of murder has about the same force against him, until the grand jury passes upon his case, that an indictment found by them has thereafter, prior to his trial. _Coroner has Power to Issue Process of Apprehension._—If a person is charged with the crime in the inquisition, the coroner has power and he issues his process for the apprehension of the accused when not in custody solely upon the inquisition. The inquisition, though taken in the absence of the prisoner, and upon the testimony of witnesses he could not cross-examine, settles the question of his guilt until the grand jury passes upon the case. It justifies the commitment of the prisoner to jail, in the same manner that the testimony of witnesses does taken before a justice of the peace. The coroner can only examine the prisoner in the same manner as upon a warrant of arrest or on information, and is not authorized to examine witnesses either against the prisoner or for him, when he is apprehended by virtue of process issued subsequent to the finding of the inquisition by the jury, or in custody of the coroner without process at the time the same is found.