Imperial Valley press., 1935-07-06
EDITORIAL PAGE
and
FEATURES
REFORMING THE BAR

We urge readers to take time to read the
article IN last nights Press. giving the
views of one of the states outstanding
attorneys and one Of its leading editors,
on what is wrong with our courts and
their method of handling cases.
The article was inspired by reading an
editorial comment on the second Lamson
case, by Chester Rowell, editor of the
San Francisco Chronicle, who cited the
length of the trial-81 days-and the in
ability to reach = verdict, as examples of
the costly inefficiency of our courts.
In replying to Editor Rowell, Attorney
Norman $ Sterry of Los Angeles, chair
man OF the committee on the admins
trat1on of justice of the California Bar
association, takes the stand, in brief,
that the root of the trouble is too many
lawyers, and particularly, too many in
efficient lawyers.
Mr.. Sterry draws parallel between
the English and American methods of
making attorneys and judges, which can
not help but show up our system in a
most undesirable light. Our sausage
making" method of turning out lawyers
results in the admission to the bar of
many who are untitled intellectually
and morally for the important business
of interpreting the law, either as attor-
neys or judges.
We would call particular attention to
that part of Mr.. Sterry's letter dealing
with the vicious attempt to break down
the rules which California has adopted
IN an effort to decrease the number of
inefficient attorneys. The 1888 legisla-
ture passed measure calling for the
automatic reinstatement to practice of
an attorney convicted of felony involv-
ing moral turpitude, if he was success
ful in obtaining a full pardon before the
expiration of his sentence. The supreme
court held the act unconstitutional
Even more vicious was an initiative
petition asking that all persons who had
been unsuccessful in passing the Califor-
MIA bar examinations for the past 10
years, be Immediately admitted to the
bar, providing their marks were at least
a 80 per cent grade and providing furth-
er that from those so admitted COM
mittee of five should examine all others
(those having less than so per cent
grades) with arbitrary powers to pass
them if they wished. In other words, it
would not only admit inefficients, but
would set up a group of inefficients to
pass upon the ability of those even more
inefficient than they were. Fortunate
ly the bar association blocked it.
These are things to which the layman
should give attention as well as the at
torneys The courts and their welfare,
are as much his business as it is the bus
mess of the attorneys or the judiciary.
There is another angle to the handi-
caps under which our courts function.
As he was addressing his letter to an
editor, Mr. Sterry was too much the gen
tleman to refer to it. 1t is the nefarious
custom, INDUCED in by some newspapers,
of ''hippodroming' trials. Immediately
upon the commission of a major crime,
the sob-sisters, cameramen, feature writ
ers and all the adjuncts a newspaper
has, are turned loose upon the case, too
often painting the accused as the injured
party and making a hero of him. In COM
munities where such papers have a wide
circulation, the difficulty in obtaining an
unbiased and unpreiudiced jury is in
creased many times over.
Reform of the judiciary and improve