On a trial for murder the prosecution had procured the attendance of Dr. Hammond to testify professionally, and had agreed to give him $500 as his fee. This fee was complained of as an irregularity, but the Court in delivering judgment remarked, “The district attorney, it is true, might have required the attendance of Dr. H. on subpœna, but that would not have sufficed to qualify him as an expert with clearness and certainty upon the questions involved. He would have met the requirements of the subpœna if he had appeared in court when he was required to testify and given impromptu answers to such questions as might have been put to him. He could not have been required, under process of subpœna, to examine the case, and to have used his skill and knowledge to enable him to give an opinion upon any points of the case, nor to have attended during the whole trial and attentively considered and carefully |30| heard all the testimony given on both sides, in order to qualify him to give a deliberate opinion upon such testimony, as an expert, in respect to the question of the sanity of the prisoner;” and held “that there was no irregularity in the payment of such a fee” [59]. Such text writers of high repute as Taylor, Phillips, Redfield and Ordronaux, all agree that an expert cannot be compelled to give professional opinions without proper remuneration. The last named writer says, “Where a subpœna is served upon an expert he must obey it, if within the range of physical possibility. But once on the stand as a skilled witness his obligation to the public ceases, and he stands in the position of any professional man consulted in relation to a subject upon which his opinion is sought. He cannot be compelled to bestow his skill and professional experience gratuitously; whoever calls for an opinion from him in chief must pay him, and the expert may decline to answer until the party calling him has paid. When he has given his evidence he cannot decline repeating it, or explaining it. A similar rule will, by parity of reasoning, apply to personal services demanded from the expert, as well as to opinions asked” [60]. On the other hand, the Supreme Court of Alabama, in 1875 [61], confirmed a fine imposed upon a physician for refusing to state the nature and character of a wound received by a man and its probable effect, upon the ground that he had not been remunerated for his professional opinion, nor had compensation for it been promised or secured. And the Court of Appeals in Texas, in 1879, held, that the court could compel a physician to testify as to the |31| result of a post-mortem examination; adding, that a medical expert could not be compelled to make a post-mortem examination unless paid for it, but an examination having already been made by him he could be obliged to disclose the results thereof [62].