Suggested improvements in our methods of administering justice frequently take the form of proposals for changes in procedure. There is great need for such changes. There is, however, another even more important line of effort about which little has been said or written in this country. We need to improve the organization of our judicial establishments and our methods of selecting and retiring judges. This has become most necessary in the metropolitan districts and in states which have passed well beyond the frontier stage of political, social and economic development and where a large part of the population and the greater business activity and wealth is contained in large cities and towns. The organization of our state judicial establishments is for the most part adapted to the social simplicity of the frontier. It consists of placing one or more judges in a territorial district-usually a county-with authority to handle all sorts of litigation, civil and criminal. In the frontier community a large territorial district composed of several counties could easily be served by one judge traveling from one county seat to another. The litigated cases he handled were usually of the simpler sort. As counties became more populous and even contained good-sized towns, the territorial district which one judge served was confined to a county. As the population and the value of the property increased and the legal problems became more diverse and the dockets in the single county larger, one judge came to have more than he could do. The only remedy applied was the creation of an additional judgeship in the county. In some instances the population of the county has increased by the growth of a large city of half a million inhabitants. In a few cases the county has become a great metropolitan district with a million or several million inhabitants. The dockets in the cities with half a million inhabitants and upwards have become incredibly long, running into thousands and tens of thousands of cases each year. The most intricate legal problems in every branch of the law are raised. The lawyers, and to some extent the public, in such districts have come to recognize that one man cannot satisfactorily handle every kind of litigation that such a community can produce. Some lawyers do largely a jury personal injury trial business for plaintiffs and defendants; others are the advisers of corporation interests; others have a successful and profitable practice in the criminal courts; still others will be found largely in litigation regarding the handling of trust estates. Nevertheless, the only method of meeting the vast increase in business and the increasing intricacy and difficulty of the problems involved has been to add more judges to the staff already serving. The judges themselves are still left with a purely frontier organization. This means no organization at all. It means that each judge is left as absolutely independent in the exercise of his judicial function as if he were the only judge in a large but sparsely settled frontier district. Each judge still has jurisdiction over every sort of case, civil and criminal, and tries all sorts of cases on a single calendar, or rotates about among cases classified on different calendars. In short, while our states have in many instances, by the increase in wealth and population and the building up of great cities and large towns, passed entirely beyond the frontier stage to that of a highly organized civilization, the type of court organization which serves it is adapted only to the frontier. We are as it were, running our courts with hand power for a civilization which requires the service of steam and electricity and all the intricate organization which the efficient application of such power demands. What we need in states which have passed well beyond the frontier stage of development is a fundamental change from decentralization, administrative irresponsibility and extreme individualistic judicial action to a centralized organization, concentrated administrative power and responsibility, specialization and co-operation. In working out this principle of change we have provided in the following model act a single court for the entire state, called the General Court of Judicature. All the judges are judges of this court and all judicial power is vested in this court. Then we have made in the court three permanent divisions. 1. The Court of Appeal, in which appellate jurisdiction is lodged. 2. The Superior Court in which all original jurisdiction is vested. Two plans of organization for the Superior Court are presented—the territorial and the functional. The former calls for five territorial districts in the state, in each of which a corps of judges, led by the Presiding Justice of the district dispose of the judicial business of the Superior Court in that district. The Presiding Justice of the district is given full power to arrange the dockets and make assignments of the causes to the different divisions, so as to secure such specialization of effort among the different judges as may seem desirable. The functional plan consists of the division of the court without any particular reference to territory into a Common Law division, handling for the most part jury trials, civil and criminal, and a Chancery division, which as the name indicates, handles chancery cases and special contested probate and domestic relations cases. 3. The third permanent division of the court consists of the County Courts. There is one of these for each county of the state. Each County Court has jurisdiction of all legal business of the county in which the smaller amounts of money are involved and which should be tried locally and expeditiously. The County Court sits not only at the county seat, but in several districts of the county so as to bring justice to the door of the litigant having small amounts involved. Counties with a population in excess of 40,000 may have one or more Associate County Judges. The County Court is assisted by District Magistrates, one in each district. Administrative authority, co-operation and coherence of effort is obtained in the following ways: There is created the Chief Justice of the state, in whom is centered large administrative powers and consequent responsibility for the way the court as a whole is run. The Chief Justice is the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal. He is Presiding Justice of the Superior Court and may act as Presiding Justice of the County Courts or appoint another to that position. Each division of the Superior Court, whether organized on the territorial plan or the functional, has its Presiding Justice to whom is given immediate charge of the work of the division. In each county there is a County Judge, who, under the Presiding Justice of the County Courts of the state, is responsible for and oversees the administration of justice by the County Court and has under his direction Associate County Judges, if there are any, and also the District Magistrates of the county. The spirit of co-operation and the esprit de corps of the entire judiciary is fostered by an annual convention of judges at which the judges meet as a whole to receive the report of the Chief Justice. The Court of Appeal meets at the same time to consider matters relating to the administration of justice by the Court of Appeal and what improvements can be made in the rules of practice and procedure. The Superior Court meets at the same time as a whole for the purpose of considering the same matters relating to the Superior Court. All the judges of the County Courts meet in the same way for the consideration of similar matters relating to the business of the County Courts. |