Raleigh, Aug. 2—The State may strike a snag in the prosecution of its case seeking to close the Highland Hospital in Asheville, operated by Dr. R.S. Carroll, as the result of the cancellation of the license to practice in the State following the preferring of charges of gross immorality against him before the State following the preferring of charges of gross immorality against him before the State board of medical examiners recently.
This snag consists in whether or not the judge of the Wake Superior Court, when the case comes to trial, will permit the introduction of the record of the proceedigns before the State board of medical examiners, or whether the court will insist that the witnesses that testified then will have to appear as witnesses.
If the court permits the introduction of the record of the secret hearing before the medical board, well and good for the state and the department of public welfare, which has caused the suit to be brought. But if the court insists that these same witnesses must appear in person at the trial that appeared before the medical board in secret session, it will be another matter. And it is evident that Dr. Carroll’s defense attorneys will do all in their power to obtain such a ruling from the court.
Although the office of the attorney general here is silent on the question and declined to discuss any phase of it, it is known that the State will have a far more difficult time in getting the 10 or 12 women who testified at the secret hearing before the medical board to come to Raleigh to testify in open court as to the alleged immoral relations of Dr. Carroll with his patients than before. The hearing before the State medical board was secret, the testimony was given to a small group of professional men, accustomed to talking with patients concerning matters of an intimate nature, and the names of the witnesses were carefully guarded, so that they would not be made public. And under these conditions, a number of former patients were persuaded to testify who otherwise probably would not have done so.
But when these same women witnesses are called upon to take the witness stand in an open courtroom, with a throng of curious onlookers, they are not likely to be so willing to testify. So it is feared that if the court insists on the personal appearance of witnesses, it may be a difficult matter to produce them, especially as a number of those at the former hearing came from a number of other states, one having been said to have come all the way from Missouri.
Legal opinion seems to differ on just what can be done int his case, some holding that the case can be decided on the record of the hearing before the State medical board, others holding that the whole affair will have to be aired in the court.
It is generally agreed, however, that the appeal taken by Dr. Carroll from the decision of the State medical board of examiners to the Superior Court of Buncombe county can be heard by the judge on the record, with argument by attorneys from both sides, without the necessity for hearing before a jury. But whether the suit filed in Wake county to close the sanitorium can be as easily disposed of remains to be seen.
From the front page of the Concord Daily Tribune, Monday, Aug. 2, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1926-08-02/ed-1/seq-1/ Prosecution
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