The San Francisco call., 1899-03-09
LAW REFORM.
other folks

YN referring TO various proposed measures for the
! | relief Of the Supreme Court, through amend
nents to the State constitution, The Call men
toned one evil affecting all the courts whether Of
original or of appellate jurisdiction, that needed
separate treatment That evil is the enormous de-
veopment OF records Before the codes were adopted
or official reporters had taken the autocrac relation
to the administration of justice that they now hold
the points OF exception in the trial OF cause were
briefly expressed at the very time they made and
the bills of exception Immediately signed by the
Judge Now each case is officially reported and the
elimination of immaterial or argumentat1ve matter is
left to the discrimination OF the reporter. When a
motion for new trial is made transcript from his
notes is usually required and charged tor by the folio
In the preparation OF statements bills OF eXcep-
ton the rule of late has been virtually to adopt the
transcript the testimony which is often but not al
ways reduced to narrative form, and the work has
become chiefly mechanical or automatic, and is COM
monty performed by clerks The result is as have
heretofore pointed out that the labor which ought to
devove on the bar is largely transferred to the bench
and that it is very small that, by the time it
reaches the Supreme Court does not contain drop
sical record that needs tapping before its solid
tents can be reached In the Federal courts the
situation is worse, for there the principal object OF
the law appears to be to fill the pockets OF clerks,
porters and printers.
These facts entail almost prohibitory expenses upon
tigants except in very heavy controversies and pro-
duce inexactness and confusion in the practice and in
the administration of the law. In courts of original
jurisdiction the jury have to depend upon their own
recollections OF the evidence, and in the charging
number of cases in which juries are dispensed with,
there is no valid reason why qualified Judges should
not be required to rely their notes Instead OF
this directness and simplicity which only demands COM
-opdi he faSb
all cases under advisement and to have the short
hand notes written out so that the labor of trials is
practically duplicated and the judicial mind immersed
in turgid mass of irrelevancies and lmmateria1t1es
from which it must extract the salient elements Tor
decision When the inevitable motion for new trial
comes all this labor has to be performed again, and,
on the appeal when transcription and typewritlng
have ceased the printer reproduces the tangled ac-
cumuation until the Judges groan as they expend a
hundred dollars worth OF energy and research to
produce dollars worth OF justice
These are scanty illustrations OF the overloaded con-
dtons of the law within courts, due partly to
political legislation for the creation and support of
supernurnerares and partly to yearly deluge of
legal fedgelngs which in the drest never fails.
The theory of our system is that justice should be
swift cheap and exact. In this State it is precisely
the reverse. From the commencement OF lawsuit
to the end each step is accompanied by every ee-
ent of cost delay and inartistc techncaty that the
ingenuity of Incidence could invent From the ad-
mission of the State to the present year the Leg1sa
ture has contained men whose interests to in
crease the volume and retard the progress of tga-
ton and each session has been besieged by Court
house lobbes, whose energies were bent upon the
MULTIPLICATION of methods to extract money from the
people, without rendering equivalent. The bane OF
California from the first has been the unnatural pro-
Iportion of scheming politicians nteraced by the COM
mon desire to extract easy livelihood from the in
man of energy and of strength has had to carry at
least another man on his back The public welfare is
as unknown quantity in the making and in the ad-
mnstration Of our laws the public honor is in the
deadlock at Sacramento.
1t is the system lack of system, not the courts
that is to blame and while it indispensable, by
an extemporized method, if better way be
found Immediately to relieve the congestion of the
Supreme Court it is equally necessary that best
legal minds who have some desire them
selves with poserty, shorld initiate larger reform
that will embrace the entire judiciary, the laws they
are called upon to apply and the officers by whom
they are assisted In other States, and especially in
have been made toward simplicity, uniformity and
promptness in the enforcement of rights and in the
redress OF wrongs. 1t is full time for California to
awaken from its Rip Van Wrinkle sunlber and real
izc that in this as in other respects, it must place
| itself abreast of the times.
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