The weekly examiner., 1901-06-08

REACHING FOR MORE CASES.
 house. For couple of hours or so | in the morning the work of examin-
 ing citations proceeds, the details varying with the nature of the case. In the evening he puts in his best
 work on the case in hand, and if it is
 ap interesting. one will robably keep l at it until a late hour. Perhaps he
 has his secretary read him the cited passages or the provisions of the law, | or the record of the lower court upon
 which the case was argued, while he | ponders the matter from an easy | chair. This is continued until he has
 absorbed clear ideas of his own of
 what ought to be the decision in the
 case. All of this, mind you, before
 he begins to prepare to write the ultl- mate decision. ...
 | Before any case is argued before l the supreme court the lawyers are required ito file briefs, fully setting 1 forth their contentious; and the jus | tices depend more upon these printed | briefs than they do upon any oral ar guments which may be made in, open | court. The arguments which are de- livered are always prosy, uninterest- 1 ing to laymen and devoid of oratory. Attorneys confine themselves to cita- tions of law and of fact, because
 there is no jury to influence, and they know that the stern and solemn justices would quietly resent any att
 tempt-to affect their judgments with
 rhetorical flights or with oratorical oJor f<r.1 1roT offo0f For
 these and many minor reasons no
 oratory is ever heard in the supreme
 courtroom. Grover Cleveland, Benja-
 min Harrison and others of eminence
 have been heard there by the writer,
 but all of their arguments have been delivered in a conversational mono tone.
 Now when the supreme court ad-
 journs for a term the associate jus
 tices do not go home, nor take trips
 to seashore or mountain. On the
 contrary, they pack their trunks, not only with clothing, but with pend ing cases, and proceed to go on their circuits and resume their judicial du- ties in various parts of the republic. In their capacity as circuit judges they conduct courts of appeals for the various circuits, and herein their duties are Onerous as well as of great responsibility. There are many cases tried before the courts of appeals which are left for final hearings when the associate justice shall preside. In the event of dissatisfaction with the decisions reached under such condi- tions appeals may be taken to the supreme court. Here again is the burden of responsibility felt, because the travelling associate justice must give to each case such consideration that his decision will be sustained by the full, bench if an appeal shall; be taken. Consequently it is exceeding ly rare that any decision of an asso- ciate justice, presiding over circuit | court of appeals, is ever overru1ed by the supreme court. This is a fact which younger practitioners might do well to file away in their memories, for it may save them great deal of time and the waste, of much talent l in the future when they have cases before the circuit courts of appeals, with associate justices of the su- preme court presiding and deciding 1 issues of law and fact.
 In these circuit courts there are cases pending in which are involved many millions of property of individ- 'uals and of states, and also eases in- volving human life. It needs no elab- oration to demonstrate that these cases require carefHl7study;sand then 1 remember that there is trunk con- taining a lot of other important cases l which must be studied in leisure 1 hours, if there ever are any leisure l hours. The cases in the trunk are for the supreme court, and some of the opinions to be reached and writ l ten can be the result only of exhaust i've research, requiring de1ving and study with logic and careful reason ing. Some of these forthcoming opin- ions must necessarily be of great length, for the supreme court must be intrenched in an impregnable cita- del of vprecedents and references.
 And so the days and weeks and months go by until the October term begins. Nobody sees any manifesto tions of the work which has been in progress, and nobody realizes it, even when the decisions are handed down day after day. SMITH D. FRY.