Perth Amboy evening news., 1907-03-29
specio, to the EVENING NEWS,


Special to the EVENING NEWS.
NEW BRUNSWICK, Mar. 29:-
The grand jury, prior to its final ad
the following presentment bearing
upon their inquiry as to the practices
of justices of this county:
To the Middlesex County Court of
Oyer and Terminer:
The Grand Inquest sitting in and
for the body of the county of Middle
sex, Off the December term, nineteen
hundred and six, respectfully makes
presentment to the Court as follows:
In accordance with the charge of
Justice Swayze at the opening of the
term, and the later charge of Judge
Booraem, this body has made an in
vestigation concerning the justices
of the peace of this county.
We nave inquired extensively into
the manner of conducting this respon-
sible Office, the practice as to the i'm
position of fines, the accuracy and
completeness or otherwise with which
dockets have been kept, the dispo-
sition to multiply or miminish the
complaints and whether there has
been abuse of criminal process for
the collection of private debt settle
ment of civil claim. The inquiry
was directed with the purpose of de-
tecting taxness, incurring of needless
expense and criminal or reprehensi-
BILE practices if they existed. To this
end we have examined, with other
witnesses, practically all the justices
in this county.
We find from the county collect
into the county treasury by justices
of the peace from January 1, 1904, to
date. the sum of one hundred and
sixty-one dollars and twenty-five
cents (51G1.25) which had been col
leoted by the justices as fines in dis
orderly cases All of this money thus
collected and paid in was from five
different justices. There are about
thirty-fye people holding commits
sions as justices of the peace in this
county, but some of them do no
business and others very little. Many
of them, we find, have imposed no
fines at all and have avoided as much
as possible the issuing Of criminal
warrants. There a few justices who
are also recorders of boroughs and
their practice has been to turn over
moneys collected into the borough
treasury. We discovered instances
of where moneys collected by JUS
tice had been given by him 10
township committee, bue he declared
he was acting in pursuance of a
township ordinance and under legal
advice A justice who is also a bor-
ough recorder imposed fine in a
case happening within his township
and within his jurisdiction as JUS
tice of the peoce, but not within the
borough limits and not within his
jurisdiction as borough recorder;
this fine he paid into the borough
treasury and not to the county.
We learned of instances where re-
corders who are also Justices have is
sued warrants as recorders for
crimes committed within the county.
but not within their jurisdiction as
recorder We believe, however, that
the officials in question have acted
through inadvertence or misunder-
standing in thus exceeding their au-
thority, and cite these instances so
that magistrates will exercise due
care in the issuing of all papers or
otherwise they may create embar-
RAISING situations for themselves.
We find wide variance among the
justices in the manner of keeping
their dockets. Some keep separate
ers keep record of all the business
which they do, wether of civil or
criminal nature, in one docket. En-
tries in some of the dockets are in
complete and were made apparently
at the personal convenience of the
justice without regard to the date of
the particular happening about which
the entries were made.
We believe this to be cause for
censure, and recommend that the
justices at stated periods submit their
dockets 10 the prosecutor for in
spection.
The abuse of discretion on the part
of justices in the issuing of two or
more warrants of various kinds,
where one reasonably would suffice
to present the matter before the
grand jury or the court, we believe
to have diminished. This practice
has been the subject of severe criti-
cism by the court in the past and
seemingly the admoniti4ns from the
bench have borne fruitl Such prac-
tice can have but or object. viz.
the multiplication OF &xed bills Of
cost and the entailing u3pn the coun-
tv OF needless eNpanse We con-