43 Vt. 20 | Vt. | 1870
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The paper pui-porting to be a marriage certificate of a marriage in the State of Pennsylvania, admitted against the objection of the respondent, was incompetent evidence and ought to have been excluded. It did not prove itself. Aside from the certificate there was no evidence that there was any such man as Benjamin Jay who was a justice of the peace, or that by the laws of Pennsylvania a justice of the peace has authority to solemnize marriages. The case states that the presiding judge stated to the jury, in his charge, that of his own knowledge justices of the peace by the laws of Pennsylvania had such authority, but that is not proof. The laws of other States, when material to the merits of a case, cannot be established except by legal evidence, and if statute laws, they must be proved by the production of the statute. If a justice of the peace has such authority by the laws of Pennsylvania, it is to be taken to exist by statute. There was no legal evidence of the handwriting of any Benjamin Jay to the certificate, and most clearly was there no legal proof of the handwriting of the Benjamin Jay by whom the certificate purports to be signed. It appears the only evidence, to prove the signature of Benjamin Jay to the certificate, was the testimony of Hugh Henry, who acted for the State in the proceeding before the justice against the respondent; who testified that soon after the justice court he wrote a letter on the subject of said marriage, to the address of Benjamin Jay, of Scranton, and received a reply thereto, signed
As to the exception to the admission of the letter of the respondent, the letter, in connection with other evidence in the case, was admissible for the purpose for which it was admitted.
There are other important questions discussed in the case, which we have not noticed, as they do not come within the scope of the exceptions taken at the trial.
Judgment reversed, and new trial granted.