Lawyers' Guide to Medical Proof

The late Marshall Houts wrote prolifically on law and medicine. He was the original author of Lawyers' Guide to Medical Proof; Courtroom Medicine: Death; Proving Medical Diagnosis and Prognosis; The Rules of Evidence; Cyclopedia of Sudden, Violent and Unexplained Death; Art of Advocacy: Appeals; Art of Advocacy: Cross-Examination of Medical Experts; and others. His book "Where Death Delights" was credited with inspiring the television series "Quincy, M.E." The series, about a Los Angeles County medical examiner who did his own detective work, starred Jack Klugman and ran from 1976 to 1983. Mr. Houts was an F.B.I. agent in Brazil and Cuba before shifting to the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency, during World War II. He was born in Chattanooga, Tenn., the son of a Methodist minister. He graduated from Brevard College in North Carolina and the University of Minnesota Law School. Mr. Houts worked as a lawyer and a municipal-court judge in Minnesota and then in Los Angeles. He taught law at U.C.L.A., Michigan State University and Pepperdine University, and forensic pathology in the medical school at the University of California at Irvine.