New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-10-20
THE DANGERS or IN ELECTIVB JUDI
CT4RY

THE DANGERS or IN ELECUVB JUDI
CL4RY
The letter Of w. j. F., on the danger of
trusting the Executive with the appointment
of our judges, is a fair sample of the strong
est arguments against The reform for which
the State of Ncw-YOrk is now striving The
objections of w. j. f. to the system of aD-
pointment may be reduced to three: !. We
shall get better judges by a direct popular
election; 2. 1t is undemOcratic to refuse to
trust the people with the election of their ser
wants; 8. 1t is dangerous TO our liberties in
these days of mOnOpOhes and great corpora
tons to place the appointment OF the courts
i'll the hands Of the Governors.
1. To the first point we may answer plumply
that experience proves the contrary. 1t is
quite true that there are many able and up
right judges in the State of New York, and
that in some of the country districts good
men are elected now and then without any
political contest. But we must judge of the
system not by its working in exceptional
cases, but first by its general results, and sec
ondly by its operation in the great centers of
business and population where the character
of the judiciary is of vastly more importance
than in all other parts of the State. 1t is so
notorious that the bench of this State has
lost character since the judges were made
elective that the statement admits of no dis
pute. In the last generation Our judges were
men who adorned their office and reflected
enduring honor upon American Jurisprudence
In New-England. where the appointing sys-
tenn still prevails, the high character of the
d, fo tbia 1aV Rut %
Mr.. D. B. Eaton remarks in his admirable
pamphlet on this subject, Kent and Duer
and Sedgwick have no successors III New
"York.n In single legislative session a
little while ago we had no fewer
than five judges awaiting trial for
official corruption - greater number
than has been arraigned in England
during two hundred years. This fact alone
ought to be enough. But we must consider,
in addition, the scandalous laxity in the adj
ministration of the law which has made New
York justice a by-wOrd of reprOach. If muir
derers go unhanged, and witnesses langush in
prison, and the jails are filed with criminals
untried, and every cause of more than ordinary
magnitude drags its slow length for years
through contradictory decisions and opposing
courts, 1T is because our judges, even when
they are honest, are unequal to their duties. If
the elective system, however, always gave
us good judges in the country, but suffered
pad ones to mount the bench in the metropo-
lis, II would still stand condemned. What it
has been IN this city, what in some respects
it still Is, we need no correspondent to tell
us. Let 1t be remembered that an immense
prepOnderance of the judicial business of the
State is transacted here. Almost all the most
important causes are heard in the city courts
Nor is this all. The jurisdiction Of every su-
preme Court justice extends over the whole
State. The illustriOus Barnard could get out
of his bed to telegraph Twenty ST. in
junction to the Sheriff of Albany and the
creatures of Sixth Ward caucus could make
their power felt in tho rcmotest county