Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/365

 332

The Green Bag

The present system of procedure in the Circuit and Superior courts of Cook County, Illinois,— the plan of rotating judges, shifting them from one depart ment to another — was attacked by Professor Albert M. Kales, of North western University, in an address before the Illinois branch of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminol ogy on May 10. Not only did he attack the methods of the courts, but also the state law which created the two higher courts for Chicago, stating that the system outlined in that law was wrong from start to finish. Supreme Court Justice Giegerich, who has repeatedly expressed himself, during the current year, about the evil of the "Lawyer's Delays" in the courts of New York County availed himself on May 21 of an unprecedented method of hurrying the procrastinating lawyers. In the regular records of the court he made public the reasons why business in six cases had remained unfinished, as a result of the widespread custom of lawyers to put off for months per functory details which are necessary before a case can be disposed of. The Court singled out six cases which had been tried before him last February. In two of them the Court had ordered that copies of the decision should be signed by the attorneys of both sides and submitted to him for his signature. These orders had not been complied with, though weeks had elapsed. In another case a settlement was arranged out of court and no notice sent to Jus tice Giegerich, so that this case also remained to clog the court which was awaiting the submission of the evidence. In two cases orders were sent to the attorneys last February to submit findngs and briefs immediately, and the awyers had not been heard from. Such

a publication of the reasons for delay, fixing the blame where it belongs, can not fail to have a salutary effect. Criminal Law

A laboratory for the study of crimi nals, on the general plan advocated by Arthur MacDonald of Washington, has recently been established in Russia, with a somewhat similar relation to the Russian government as that of the Smithsonian Institution to the United States government. It is understood that about $750,000 has been set aside by Russia for the purpose. Other coun tries have promised consideration. The scheme includes investigation by use of instruments of precision and the obtaining of all important facts regarding the individual and his surroundings. Referring to the prominence which he has given to physical investigations, Dr. MacDonald explains, in a recent article, that "The preference in crimi nal anthropology for the study of the physical side of the criminal is mainly chronological. For in any new line of work, one must begin in some place, and since already anthropology has produced a large number of physical data, and since such data are usually more definite in nature, they were nat urally first considered. It is therefore more a matter of convenience than im portance of investigations that the physi cal side receives more attention. An other reason for this preference is that psychology has not as yet, like anthro pology, established a sufficient number of facts to be called a science in the rigid sense." Police Commissioner Waldo and Com missioner of Accounts Fosdick of New York lately combined in an attack on what they called the abuse of power by the judges of the Court of General Ses