The New York herald., 1922-12-17

with the jury. They may enjoy listening
to his oratorical fireworks for a limited
time, but in these sophisticated days they
are apt to regard the speeches of counsel
as a necessary evil only. and most of the
highfalutin as "hot air" and bull" Courts
of law have lost most of their awe and
mystery for the ordinary citizen largely
through his knowledge that even if the
judges and prosecutors are honest and able
men they generally owe their jobs to
politics; and jurors are no longer so
ignorant that the mellifuous voice of a
silver tongued orator can deprive them of
their powers of reason. They are apt to
be governed by the facts-which is a long
step in advance over what used to be the
ease and is so still in some parts of our
country even to-day
What is the test of a successful District
Attorney? How are the people to know
whether the prosecutor is on his job or
whether he is better or worse than his
predecessor unless the newspapers tell
them so? Cannot his industry be estimated
and his ability measured by his results
as Indicated in the records? Not very
satisfactorily. For the mere number
of indictments found by the Grand Jury
under his guidance do not necessarily prove
anything as to his personal efficiency They
may indicate greater or less police activity.
or an increase or decrease in the amount
of crime itself. The volume of indictments
has no significance whatever-it may be
that none of them should have been found
and that all of them will have ultimately to
be dismissed, or that there should have
been twice as many. Similarly no compari-
son between the number of cases disposed
Of by one District Attorney, as contrasted
with the number handled by another, fur
nishes any test of effectiveness, for the
disposition" may be merely a wholesale
Jail delivery by recommendations of dis
missal," and the so-called disposition" the
very worst disposition possible. In point
of fact paueity, rather than a multiplicity,
of indictments may well indicate that the
District Attorney knows his business and
is doing it effectively, i. e., is throwing out
the "Assmanshausens" instead of yielding
to his own desire to oblige, and clogging
the calendars with hopeless cases.
Desires Dead Open and Shut Cases"
Moreover, the fact that the District At
torney secures convictions in almost all his
prosecutions proves nothing either: it may
only tend to show that he is unwilling to
find indictments in other than dead open
and shut cases. that is, cases where there
is no possibility of an acquittal. Such a
prosecutor is even more dangerous than the
amiable begetter of Assmanshausens. for
the police will quickly become discouraged
if the District Attorney insists that no
crook shall be put on trial who is not
caught with a revolver in his hand or
stolen necklace in his pocket. A hundred
per cent. batting average in the trial of
cases, without any acquittals, and an equal
ratio of convictions to the total number of
indictments found, would in fact justify
the suspicion that the prosecutor was rum
ming his office for the sole purpose of self
glorification.
How, then, are the taxpayers to know
a good" District Attorney when they see
one? The only answer is that they can't.
The statistics of his office are practically
valueless to help us. If there We're some
thing definite to start from-say an av-
erage ratio of convictions to indictments.
covering a great number of years, taken in
conjunction with an average ratio of indict-
ments to the county's population, it might
from mere figures be possible to guess at
the prosecutors activity and efficiency
But it would be only a guess, and a bad
one at that, for it would necessarily be
based on the Assumption that police act
ivity and efficiency remained constant
throughout the whole narind No ctntiS-