The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-09-08
The Supreme Court Amendment.

Would it not be advisable for Chairman
Clay Of the democratic campaign COM
mittee TO notify the campaign speakers to
call the attention of the people to the i'm
portance OF the proposed amendment Of
the constitution increasing the number Of
the judges Of the supreme court from
three to fve2 All the people are inter
ested in this amendment. There is no
politics connected with II. Two legis-
latures have made a thorough inquiry as
TO whether additional judges are needed,
/ and have reported in the Affirmative.
/ No man who gives the matter considera-
( tion can have a doubt that the proposed
/ amendment ought to be adopted Three
/ judges are not capable Of doing well the
work that the supreme court is required
to do They do not have the time 10 give
the attention TO the cases brought before
them that the cases ought 10 have.
Hence there is constant danger of making
presidents that may .eopardize the in
terests Of the people. Every citizen is
profoundly interested in having The laws
correctly interpreted. Wrong interpreted
tons of the laws are fraught with
as much danger almost as bad laws.
Such interpretations are productive of
evils of the gravest character.
The people do not seem to realize that
there has been an enormous increase in
the number of cases that 90 to the SUI
preme court since the number the judges
was fixed at three. In railroad corpora
ton cases the increase has been 900 per
cent, in criminal cases 3l2 per cent, and
in damage suits l,133 per cent. 1t is APP
parent from this brief statement that
there has been an enormous increase in
the amount of work the judges have to
do.
This increase is only legitimate The
population that can litigate has increased
since 1876 from 456, $50 to nearly 1000, 600;
taxable property from S271 53s, 1922 to
1852, GA, 907, aud the number of miles Of
railroad from sos miles to 1925 miles
These figures make it plain that it is time
that the number of supreme court Judges
was increased.
No fault is found with the judges. They
do the best they can under the circum-
stances, but too much is expected of
them. 1t is simply an impossibiity for
them to write decisions for all of the
cases argued before the court
The best they can do is
to write head notes for the
most of them, and head notes are not sat
isfactory because they do not give the
reasons for a decision.
There is no other state of the impor-
lance Of Georgia that is so economical in
the matter of its supreme court All of
them of that class have not less than five
judges. In Virginia each supreme court
Judge decides on an average of 207 cases a |
year, and in North Carolina 439 cases. In
Georgia each supreme court judge decides
an average each year Of 1,0l6 cases
1t is plain that with such an amount of
work the judges cannot do Justice to
themselves nor render decisions credit
able to the state. If some of the burden
is not taken from them it will not be long
before decisions by the Georgia supreme
court will not be regarded as valuable by
the courts of any other state
The people owe it to themselves to
adopt the proposed amendment. Their
pride in their state should induce them to
vote for it.