Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-07-15
JUDGES and the Bar

The admission to the District bar
last week of Thurman Arnold, re-
Gently resigned from the United
States Court of Appeals, serves
again to direct attention to an
anomalous situation which prevails
in the highest appellate court in
the Nations Capital
Most of the work of the Court of
Appeals is concerned with litigation
that is purely local in character.
Yet there is no requirement that
the judges of this tribunal, or any
of them, be selected from among
the members of the local bar. Dur
ing the time that Mr.. Arnold sat on
the bench of the Court of Appeals
he and three of his four associates
we're not qualified to practice before
that court. Nor could Mr.. Arnold
and two of his appellate associates
have practiced in the District Court.
1t is no answer to this to say that
judges cannot practice in any event
while serving on the bench. The
point is that, in the politically i'm
potent District of Columbia, there
has grown up during the past twelve
years a practice of arbitrarily re-
fuSing to consider fully qualified
District candidates for vacancies on
the Court of Appeals. This is not
true with respect to the District
Court, although virtually all of the
litigation which goes to the Court
of Appeals originates in the District
Court. And the reasons which
prompt the selection of District
lawyers to fill some of the vacancies
on the District Court apply-except
for extraneouS conSiderations-with
equal force to the Court of Appeals.
There is no thought here of dis
paraging the appellate judges, But
it is a fact that questions constantly
arise in the court which call for
thorough knowledge of local prac-
tice and procedure-a qualification
that a man who is not a member of
the District bar and who is not
qualified to practice before the Dis
trict courts can hardly be expected
to have. This is not a matter of
small Importance, and, in fact, the
Supreme Court has said that the
proper functioning of local courts
requires that judges be familiar
with "the intricacies and trends of
local law and practice"
This announcement was made
some months ago when the Court
of Appeals, uncertain as to the ap-
plication of an earlier Supreme
Court ruling, certified technical
question of local law to the high
court. Declining to answer the
question, the Supreme Court said:
1--WE think it appropriate that the
question of local law should be an
Swered by the courts of the District
before this court is called upon to
answer it =. There are cogent
reasons why this court should not
undertake to decide questions of
local law without the aid of some
expression of the views of judges of
the local courts who are familiar
with the intricacies and trends of
local law and practice"
In time, of course, appellate
judges who are not members of the
local bar may acquire this familiar
ity. But, granting the desirability
of the local background to which
the Supreme Court refers, it is
clearly unreasonable to exclude ar
bitrarily members of the District
bar from the appellate bench, and
it is to be hoped that President
Truman, in filling the two vacancies
on the Court of Appeals, will re-
verse the existing policy, which can
not be justified and which may in
terfere with the proper functioning
L u