Proofs under Extradition Act. Building Societies Act. Proof of certificates and rules. of attorneys and solicitors kept by the registrar, certified under the hand of the Secretary of the Incorporated Law Society (while such society performs the duties of registrar), or of the registrar for the time being, shall be evidence as aforesaid of the facts appearing in such extract, and in the case of any person, being a conveyancer, whose name does not appear in such list, the fact of his being so shall be proved in the way in which it is now by law required to be proved. (q) By the Extradition Act, 1870, 33 & 34 Vict. c. 52, s. 15, foreign warrants and depositions or statements on oath, and copies thereof, and certificates of or judicial documents stating the fact of a conviction, shall be deemed duly authenticated for the purposes of this Act, if authenticated in manner provided for the time being by law, or authenticated as follows: (1). If the warrant purports to be signed by a judge, magis- (3). If the certificate of or judicial document stating the fact By the Extradition Act, 1873, 36 & 37 Vict. c. 60, s. 4, it is declared that the provisions, of the principal Act (rr) relating to depositions and statements on oath taken in a foreign state, and copies of such original depositions and statements, do and shall extend to affirmations taken in a foreign state, and copies of such affirmations. By 37 & 38 Vict. c. 42 (The Building Societies Act, 1874,) s. 20, any certificate of incorporation or of registration, or other document relating to a society under this Act, purporting to be signed by the registrar, shall, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, be received by the court and by all courts of law and equity, and elsewhere, without proof of the signature, and a printed copy of the rules of a society, certified by the secretary, or other officer of the society, to be a true copy of its registered rules, shall, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, be received as evidence of the rules. (q) R. v. Wenham, 10 Cox, C. C. 222. (r) See Ex parte Counhaye, 42 L. J. Q. B. 217. Ex parte Dubois, 36 L. J. (rr) The Extradition Act, 1870. nul tiel record. Records are proved either by producing the record itself, or by Proof of rean exemplification, or by a copy. (s) As a general rule, when nul cords. tiel record is pleaded, the record, if a record of the same court, is On an issue of produced and inspected by the court; if a record of an inferior court, it is proved by the tenor of the record certified under a writ of certiorari issued by the Superior Court; if a record of a concurrent superior court, it is proved by the tenor certified under a writ of certiorari, issued out of chancery, and transmitted thence by writ of mittimus. (t) The issue of nul tiel record seldom occurs in criminal cases, except in the instance of a plea of autrefois acquit, &c. (u). ments. Wherever it was necessary to prove the finding or the trial of Where it is an indictment, the record must formerly have been regularly drawn necessary to up, and either produced, or an examined copy of it produced and prove indictproved. Where, therefore, an indictment for a conspiracy alleged that at a Court of Quarter Sessions an indictment was preferred against A. B., and found by the grand jury, the Court of King's Bench held that the indictment indorsed a true bill, but without any caption to it, and the minutes made by the clerk of the peace containing the style of the sessions, and the minutes of the business done at it, were not sufficient evidence of the finding of the bill, and that the record itself or an examined copy was the only legitimate evidence to prove it. (v) And so it has been held that a plea of autrefois convict cannot be supported by the indictment with the finding of the grand jury upon it. (w) So where the prisoner was in fact confined in Abingdon gaol, and the governor of that gaol proved that he was present in Court when the prisoner was tried for housebreaking, and heard sentence passed upon him, and he produced the calendar of the sentences passed at those assizes signed by the clerk of assize, and stated that there was not any other authority for carrying into execution the sentences of the Court at the assizes, even in cases of murder; Maule, J., held that this was not evidence of the prisoner being in lawful custody, as the sentence of the Court at the assizes could only be proved by the record. (a) Where on an indictment for the non-repair of certain highways, upon the trial of which the question was, whether a parish was bound to repair all the highways in it as a (s) 1 Stark. Ev. 388. (t) Tidd. 801, 804. Rosc. Ev. 73. Before the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 99, s. 13, where a record of a court of quarter sessions was pleaded in a court of oyer and terminer, or the converse, it ought, in strictness, to have been proved as above stated but the practice, it is said, was to apply simply to the clerk of the peace, or clerk of assize, who would make it out for you without writ, or would attend with the record itself at the trial. Arch. Cr. Pl. 124. See now the above Act, noticed, post, p. 415, which it seems applies in the cases mentioned in it, where there is an issue of nul tiel record. (u) In which case it seems, the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 99, s. 13, post, 415, applies. Upon this plea, the proof of the issue lies on the defendant, and he will have to prove the record of acquittal : (v) Rex v. Smith, 8 B. & C. 341. (w) Rex v. Bowman, 6 C. & P. 101. See the cases collected in note (g), vol. 1, p. 48, and Porter v. Cooper, 6 C. & P. 354, and Rex v. Thring, 5 C. & P. 507, where Gurney, B. held that the minute book of the Court of Quarter Sessions was not admissible in evidence on an indictment for perjury to prove the trial on which the perjury was alleged to have been committed; and Rex v. Bellamy, R. & M. N. P. R. 171. (x) Reg. v. Bourdon, 2 C. & K. 366. Minutes admissible during the same assizes. Trials of appeals. parish, or the several townships the highways situate in each of them, in order to prove the conviction of the parish upon a similar indictment-in 1806, a witness proved that he went to the house of the clerk of assize for the Oxford circuit, in London, and there saw him and his son, and asked for the record, and received a written paper, which he produced, which he and the son of the clerk of assize compared with a document then produced as the record, and which the witness stated he thought was on paper, but he was not sure whether it was on paper or parchment, but it was much torn, and the son of the clerk of assize stated that he could not recollect the particular transaction; but the practice was, when a record was required, to make it out from the minutes and the indictment on an original parchment roll, which was signed by the clerk of assize, and a copy was then made on paper and compared with the roll, and stamped with the Oxford circuit stamp, which copy was given to the party applying for it, and that, as far as his own experience went, the roll was drawn up from the indictment and minutes, without any paper draft in the first instance being made, and that he never knew of a paper-copy having been kept; and that the paper produced was signed by his father and stamped with the circuit stamp; Coleridge, J., held that the paper was admissible as an examined copy of the record. (y) The minutes of a Court of oyer and terminer may be received, where the matter to be proved by the minutes has occurred before the same Court sitting under the same commission; as upon the trial of Horne Tooke, where the minutes of the Court were received as proof of the trial of Hardy. (2) So the indictment with the officer's note upon it of a verdict of not guilty is sufficient evidence during the same assizes, upon a plea of autrefois acquit, that the prisoner was acquitted upon such indictment. (a) And so the caption of the general gaol delivery of the Central Criminal Court, the indictment with the note of the prisoner's plea, the verdict and the sentence entered thereon, together with the minutes of the trial entered by the officer of the Court in the minute book, are sufficient evidence at a subsequent session of the Central Criminal Court. (b) But although it was once held, on the trial of an indictment for perjury alleged to have been committed on the trial of an appeal against an order of removal, that the sessions book produced by the clerk of the peace was not sufficient to prove the trial of the appeal; (c) yet where on an appeal against an order of removal the book containing the proceedings at the sessions was proved to be the original sessions book, regularly made up and recorded after each sessions by the clerk of the peace, from minutes taken by him in Court, and the minutes of each sessions were headed by an (y) Reg. v. The Inhabitants of Pembridge, C. & M. 157. (*) 2 Phill. Ev. 135, citing 25 St. Tr. 446. (a) Rex v. Parry, 7 C. & P. 836, Bolland, B. (b) Reg. v. Newman, 2 Den. C. C. 390; 21 L. J. M. C. 75, ante, p. 89. (c) Rex v. Ward, 6 C. & P. 366, Park, J. A. J. The clerk of the peace stated that he should have drawn up a record on parchment, if he had been applied to so to do, and the case does not state what the form of the entry in the book was. See the observations of the court on this case in Reg. v. Yeovely, 8 A. & E. 806, infra. entry containing the style and date of the sessions, and the names of the justices in the usual form of a caption, and no other record was kept of the proceedings of the sessions than the said sessions book, and it had always been received in evidence in the Court of Quarter Sessions, for the purpose of proving them; the Court of Queen's Bench held, that such book, was properly received in order to prove the quashing of an order of removal on the trial of a former appeal between the same parishes. (d) When nul tiel record is not pleaded, but it is necessary to prove In other cases. a record in support of some allegation in the pleadings, the record may be proved either by an exemplification or a copy. Exemplifications are either under the great seal or under the seal of the Court in which the record is produced, and are admissible without proof of the genuineness of the seal. (e) A record may also be proved by an examined copy, except upon the issue of nul tiel record. (f) The copy must be proved by some witness who has examined it line for line with the original, or who has examined the copy while another read the original. (g) It ought to appear that the record from which the copy was taken was seen in the hands of the proper officer, or in the proper place for the custody of such records. (h) So an office copy in the same Court in the same cause, is equivalent to a record; but in another court, or in another cause in the same Court, the copy must be proved. (¿) In order to prove a verdict, a copy of the whole record, including the judgment, is necessary, for otherwise it would not appear but that the judgment had been arrested, or a new trial granted. (j) Where an indictment for perjury alleged that Burraston was convicted upon an indictment for perjury, upon the trial of which the perjury in question was alleged to have been committed, and it appeared by the record when produced that Burraston had been convicted, but the judgment against him reversed upon error after the finding of the present indictment, it was held that the record produced supported the allegation in the indictment. (k) Where necessary to prove conviction or acquittal of any person, the record may By the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 99, s. 13, 'whenever in any proceeding whatever () it may be necessary to prove the trial and conviction or acquittal of any person charged with any indictable offence, it shall not be necessary to produce the record of the conviction or acquittal of such person, or a copy thereof, but it shall be sufficient that it be certified or purport to be certified under the hand of the clerk of the Court or other officer having the custody of the records clerk of court. of the Court where such conviction or acquittal took place, or by the deputy of such clerk or other officer, that the paper produced (d) Reg. v. Yeovely, 8 A. & E. 806, and see per Patteson, J., in Rex v. Nottingham Old Water Works Company, 6 A. & E. 355. (e) Tooker v. Duke of Beaufort, Sayer, 297. (f) Upon this issue the record in certain cases can be proved in the mode pointed out by the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 99, s. 13, infra. (9) Reid v. Margison, 1 Campb. 469. It is not necessary for the persons examining to exchange papers, and read them alternately. Gyles v. Hill, ibid. n. to the examination of the whole of the As be certified under band of is a copy of the record of the indictment, trial, conviction, and judgment or acquittal, as the case may be, omitting the formal parts thereof.' And see the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 100, s. 22. (m) Proof of previ- By 34 & 35 Vict. c. 112, s. 18, 'a previous conviction may be ous conviction. proved in any legal proceeding whatever against any person by producing a record or extract of such conviction, and by giving proof of the identity of the person against whom the conviction is sought to be proved with the person appearing in the record or extract of conviction to have been convicted. A record or extract of a conviction shall in the case of an indictable offence consist of a certificate containing the substance and effect only (omitting the formal part of the indictment and conviction), and purporting to be signed by the clerk of the Court or other officer having the custody of the records of the Court by which such conviction was made, or purporting to be signed by the deputy of such clerk or officer; and in the case of a summary conviction shall consist of a copy of such conviction purporting to be signed by any justice of the peace having jurisdiction over the offence in respect of which such conviction was made, or to be signed by the proper officer of the Court by which such conviction was made, or by the clerk or other officer of any court to which such conviction has been returned. A record or extract of any conviction made in pursuance of this section shall be admissible in evidence without proof of the signature or official character of the person appearing to have signed the same. A previous conviction in any one part of the United Kingdom may be proved against a prisoner in any other part of the United Kingdom, and a conviction before the passing of this Act shall be admissible in the same manner as if it had taken place after the passing thereof. A fee not exceeding five. shillings may be charged for a record of a conviction given in pursuance of this section. The mode of proving a previous conviction authorized by this section shall be in addition to and not in exclusion of any other authorized mode of proving such conviction.' Copies of records in the Record Office. The several statutes which afford facilities for proving a previous conviction by means of a certificate of the clerk of assize, or clerk of the peace, are made for the more easy proof of such convictions, and do not prevent the proof of the previous conviction by an examined copy of the record. () By the 1 & 2 Vict. c. 94, ss. 12, 13, every copy of a record in the custody of the master of the rolls certified as a true and authentic copy by the deputy keeper of the records, or one of the assistant record keepers, and purporting to be sealed or stamped with the seal of the record office, shall be received as evidence in all courts of justice, and before all legal tribunals, and before either House of Parliament, or any committee of either House, without any further (m) Ante, p. 36, and see ante, p. 413. evidence thereof; for the statute, hy Northam v. Edwards . 788, Reg. v. |