Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/124

98 98 HARVARD LAW REVIEW, IMPROVEMENT IN CRIMINAL PLEADING. FROM time to time there are sharp expressions of impatience with the results of important criminal trials in this Commonwealth.^ Such expressions are not so frequent as they well might be. And if all of the proceedings in criminal causes, unimportant as well as important, were well understood, there is little doubt that dissatis- faction would be felt to so great an extent as to create a loud call for a revision of our methods. The need of an overhauling be- comes apparent to one who examines our present system of crim- inal pleading and procedure. There are faults which result in positive public harm. That these can be corrected has been and is the opinion of those charged with the administration of the law, and of students of the system. State officials have made sugges- tions of changes, but have hmited their recommendations. The Supreme Judicial Court has recognized that improvement might be made. It is certain that reform must come. There is no sufficient reason why it should not be begun at once. The first step in criminal procedure for us to consider is the formal accusatron, which ordinarily is by way of complaint or indictment. Informations are so infrequent that there is no occasion to con- sider them in this article. No change is needed in the method of entering a complaint. The rules with respect to setting out of- fences are the same in complaints as in indictments. They will be considered hereinafter when the subject of indictment is reached. So far as the grand jury — the body which presents the indict- ment — is concerned, there is no trouble of consequence. It does its duty speedily and well. Although it is influenced to a consider- able extent by the advice of the prosecuting officer, there are many occasions when it acts independently and to excellent advantage. In prosecutions for most offences its acts are satisfactory. In some 1 This feeling is not confined to this State. There are occasional outbursts of pro- test against the way in which the criminal law is administered elsewhere. No one could hear the paper recently read before the Unitarian Club in Boston by Ex-Presi- dent A. D. White without being strengthened in the conviction that a remedy must be sought and applied. The same general defects exist in many of the States. Some have special difficulties growing out of local statutes and decisions. With honest effort on the part of the Legislatures, most of such difficulties can be remedied.