The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-09-28
Missouri Judge Believes Courts
Should Be Criticised.
Newspapers and Judicial Bench
Should Be Friendly, He Says.
COURTS MANS INVENTION
When They Err They Should Be
Reprimanded.
Their Public Acts ShOuId Re
Subject to Discussions.

Kansas City, Mo-, Sept. 2S.-The
right of the press to fairly criticize the
courts and their decisions was upheld
today by Judge Henry Lamm of Sc
dalia, in delivering the presidents adj
dress at the annual meeting of the
Missouri State Bar association. Judge
Lamm deprecated the apparent lack of
cooperation between the press and
the bench and urged a closer relation
ship. He declared, in closing, the
press, as it now exists, could not have
existed If the courts had not used
every shred of judicial power, every
act and part of judicial reasoning in its
behalf
IF one believed all he heard now-a-
days" said Judge Lamm, The would
come by the notion it was hard to keep
the peace between the bench and the
press; that the press carries a chip on
its shoulder for the bench and believes
in its secret soul the bench carries a
corresponding chip for the press.
Courts Liable to Err.
1.-The first point of irritation is on
the right of the press to criticise
courts at all. Courts are mans in
vention, the result of a slow evolution
and are human institutions. The
courts have human limitations and
frailties, hence are liable to err and
stand to have their errors hammered
out on the anvil of public discussions
and cured by exposures. 1t is vain
to conterd they are immune from Just
up to high efficiency of service.
maintain the proposition that "a free
people, and therefore free press,
may examine, discuss, que stion or de-
fend the doctrines and acts of their
courts. 1 do not believe that great
courts and judges impugn this general
rule or seek its modification.
The Methods Used.
''The next point of irritation is on
the way the right of criticism Of
courts and judges is exercised by the
press. Ill-natured and malignant bit
terness in criticism, when open and
aboVe-bOard, generally carries an an
tidote on its own foul face. We pass
1t by as unworthy of notice. 1t is the
hasty, the honest-hut often shallow
and ligent-criticism, or the
StudiOuSly unfeir criticism when such
exists in the press, that does deadly
work in undermining the resp ct due
| by the people to judges ard courts"
Judge Lamm said as a result of the
! strict legal phrasing of decisions by
courts, the average run of people know
nothing at all of what their courts do,
except what they get out of the news
papers Declaring there is an unwrit-
ten law that a court or a judge, crit
icized by being misquoted, misunder-
stood or ridiculed, must suffer in sill
ence. He said:
Pleads Fairness.
mo newspaper should asSail g.
| courts judgment or disparage it by a.
hairs breadth without a pains taking
| inquiry into the facts-alI of them
| that the court had before it when it
rendered that same judgment. If that
| adm onition be needed many a wound
would be spared and many a sore spot
! healed
The true attitude of the courts to the
| newspapers, said Judge Lamm in con-
| clusion, lis found in the great judg-
ments of great courts, the great opin-
! ions of great judges upholding the
right of a decent press to be free to
| discuss with manly frankneSS and
! fearlessness those officials, those men,
| those principles, those things lying
| close to the public veal"