Imperial Valley press., 1935-07-05

pfacUCe has time Tor pOlJlCS, 1OI
attending various public meetings.
state societies and conventions.
With no persons or body polite Or
ganized to select candidates for ju-
dicial office for their qualifications,
and with the right Of anyone to
submit himself as a candidate for
Judicial office, the result has been
that in large communities a num-
Der OF men have been elected to
the bench who have had no real
experience and who are not quail
fled by training to exercise that
high office. These remarks are
not in disrespect of our courts. The
majority of our judges are honest
and able, but it is unfortunately
true that the judicial ranks are be-
ing permeated with an increasing
minority of men who have not had
sufficient experience or training at
the bar to warrant the exercise of
high judicial functions. and now
and then a man lacking in moral
calibre finds a place upon The
bench. In my practice, I have per-
Sonally once or twice taken part
in a jury trial before a Judge who
had never participated in that
character of trial, and who did not
know the mechanics of selecting a
jury.
Functions of Jury
Now. theoretically, the functions
of jury are to pass upon disput-
ed issues Of fact, but actually. they
not only have to weigh conflicting
testimony, but in civil cases. ap-
ply to the facts they are supposed
to find rather intricate and COM
plicated rules of law. In England
the judge, because Of his thorough
training and experience, guides the
jury from the start and usually so
sums up the case that they realize
their verdict for plaintiff or de-
fendant must depend upon wheth-
er they find one set of facts or an
other to be true. The appeals to
prejudice, passion and sympathy
which are constantly INDUCED in in
this country in civil and criminal
trials would not be permitted in
England. It is true that by the
! aSt election, a constitutional
amendment authorized the Judges
to comment upon evidence. but it
is hardly to be expected that a
judge who has had little, if any,
trial experience as a lawyer can
guide, control and properly advise
the jury.
Now, as long as the conditions
I have outlined exist, our codes of
be rewritten until one is black in
the face without improving the ad-
miniStration either Of civil or Grim
inal justice. If you were to or
ganize an automobile race from
your city to the top of Mount Ia
malpaiS between Eddie Ricken-
backer driving an old T model Ford
and an inexperienced automobiliSt
III the latest Packard or Cadillac
who had never motored off city
streets. there would be very
little doubt in your mind that
Mr.. Rickenbacker would win the
race, even assuming his opponent
stayed on road. The probabilities
are he would go off at the first turn.
We cannot approach anywhere
near the ideal perfection of the ad-
ministration Of English justice SO
long as present conditions prevail
OF an oyercrowded bar. Unfortunate
ly, the popular trend does not seem
to be towards remedying the evil.
Every attempt of the bar to make
admissions more difficult and more
stringent is met with great re-
sistance and is generally nullified.
Likewise, there is a constant re-
sistance to the efforts of the bar to
tighten its discipline, and to purge
its ranks of undesirable members.
The 1888 legislature passed an
act, the provisions Of which re-
quired the automatic reinstatement
to the bar of any lawyer who had
been convicted Of a felony involving
moral turpitude if he was successful
IN obtaining q full pardon before
the expiration of his sentence. For
tunately, the supreme court held the
act unconstitutional. Again, an
initiative petition was recently cir
culated and just missed getting on
the ballot, which provided that
every person who had taken an
examination to practise law within
the last ten years and had failed
but who had obtained a fifty per
cent grade, should be Immediately
admitted to practice, and the su-
preme court should then appoint
from such newly admitted members
a committee of five who should ex-
anime all the other applicants with
arbitrary power to admit them.
There is also constant agitation
against disciplinary efforts Of state
bar This mostly is started by
friends of attorneys who have
been, or should be, disciplined for
unethical professional conduct. In
deed, doubt if any layman or many
lawyers realize the great difficulties
which the officers Of the state bar
have constantly encountered in
their untiring efforts to rid the bar
of undesirable members, and to
place some small check upon the
admission of undesirable applicants.
Any number of law schools. east
and west, are turning out aspirants
to the bar as sausage machine
turns out links of sausage, and even
under the most stringent restric-
tions which courts and the bar are
at present able to impose, there is
no real method by which the actual
integrity and honesty of the ap-
plicant for admission to the bar can
be tested. The importance to the
body polite of bar. The entire in