medical journal following the case suggested that the publicity it caused might hamper medical discretion, but claimed the use of opiates in terminal cases was essential. Adams may be seen as an extreme case in their use, but other doctors also used them to ease the passing. Legal legacy Adams's trial has had many effects on the English legal system. The first was establishing the principle of double effect that if a doctor "gave treatment to a seriously ill patient with the aim of relieving pain or distress, as a result of which that person's life was inadvertently shortened, the doctor was not guilty of murder." Owing to the potentially prejudicial evidence that was mentioned in the committal hearing (regarding Mrs Hullett, evidence that was not subsequently used in Adams's trial for murdering Mrs Morrell) the Tucker Committee was held, which led to the law being changed in the subsequent Criminal Justice Act 1967 to restrict what might be published about committal hearings to avoid pre-trial publicity. Though a defendant had never been required to give evidence in his own defence, Judge Devlin underlined in his summing-up that no prejudice should be attached by the jury to Adams not doing so. The case also led to changes in Dangerous Drugs Regulations, meaning that Schedule IV poisons required a signed and dated record of patient details and the total dose used. Previously, the record need only have recorded such drugs obtained. It has been suggested by a number of professionals in biomedical law that Devlin's proposition that a doctor whose primary intention is to relieve pain, even if life is incidentally shortened, provides a special defence in law for doctors only, and may be an example of the reluctance of courts to convict doctors. Although it is frequently asserted by, for example, the British Medical Association, that UK law does not distinguish between doctors and non-doctors, the way that intention to kill is interpreted in medical cases shows that the law treats the bona fide exercise of a doctor's clinical judgment as precluding a guilty mind. Subsequent cases It was 25 years before another doctor in Britain, Leonard Arthur, stood trial for murder arising from treatment. Arthur was tried in November 1981 at Leicester Crown Court for the attempted murder of John Pearson, a newborn child with Down syndrome. Like Adams, on the advice of his legal team he did not