284
THE GREEN BAG
A peculiar condition exists here in this county. About four-fifths of the time of all the common law judges is consumed in listening to personal injury litigation. It is clear that the improvements above sug gested (except perhaps the shortening of the appeals) would not materially affect that personal injury litigation. It is my belief, however, that with a few simple improvements in our practice such as are above suggested, our present judges could, with some additional help, soon dispose of the present large accumulation of business and keep up with their common law dockets. My belief is also that after our judges shall have been for a time prompt!}' trying per sonal injury cases as they are brought, the number of these brought will decrease rather than increase. It is the belief of many per sons interested in the defense of that class of cases that delay in trials works for the advantage of the defendant. My own be lief is that it has a contrary effect, by en couraging perjury and rendering its detec tion less easy; and by giving the memories of interested parties an opportunity to shape themselves according to the demands of the occasion, until they actually believe what in the beginning they knew to be untrue. If we had reached that stage of progress, so alluring to think upon, where none but
barristers especially trained for that career were allowed to practise in our courts, and where judges were chosen solely from that class, perhaps we in this county might not need more judges. As conditions are we do. Two-thirds of the litigation in courts of record in the state of Illinois is conducted in the Circuit and Superior Courts of Cook County. This fact can be sufficiently veri fied by examining the cases in our Supreme Court. The judges of the Superior and Circuit Courts of Cook County constitute less than one-third of the judges of courts of record in this state. Four times as much work, therefore, is required of the Cook County judge as of the judge outside of Cook County. Either we have too few judges, or the rest of the state has too many. If our present condition, under which the man with a legitimate claim growing out of a commercial transaction, is crowded out of court by the personal injury litigation, and denied all justice, is not to continue indefinitely we must have some more judges. With such help, and with the help of a very few simple changes in our practice such as are above suggested, it is my belief that the present intolerable condition of delay can be remedied. AMOS C- MILLER. CHICAGO, ILL., April, 1905.
SOUTH CAROLINA Mr. R. Newton Crane's interesting article on "Speedy Trials in England" gives us an outline of a compact and effective sys tem of jurisprudence which should com mand our thoughtful and earnest admira tion. To one accustomed to the slothful and grinding process of the trial of causes in the courts of the various states, this English system seems indeed marvelous. And yet the essential elements of the sys tem in England are both simple and prac tical; and there is no apparent reason why they could not be applied with conspicuous
success in America. The provisions of law in England for speedy trials seem to be the outgrowth of careful attention to detail. The whole scheme for litigation is well knit together; it is compact and elastic. On the contrary in the various states the rights of litigants are regulated by rather loosely framed and disconnected statutes and rules, which form an essentially crude and ineffec tive system. It is disjointed and unelastic. In the states little or no attention is paid to the prime necessity for promptness in the despatch of legal business. In the
