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DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
The Chair recognizes Delegate Mudd.
DELEGATE MUDD: Mr. Chairman,
may I at this time yield three minutes to
Delegate Rosenstock to speak against the
amendment?
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Rosenstock.
DELEGATE ROSENSTOCK: Mr. Chair-
man, and fellow delegates, the Committee
has attempted to make use of judicial man-
power that is available to judges who have
reached the age of constitutional senility
of seventy to help out where the need is
indicated to the Court.
As we know, we have attempted to create
a unified effective judiciary in the State of
Maryland. You have evidence in our own
body of the delegate who, although he has
reached that age, is well qualified to carry
on judicial duties if the Constitution per-
mitted the same.
Now, there are times when because of
disqualification, illness and other matters
that the chief judge would find it neces-
sary, with the concurrence, as the Com-
mittee wrote in so that the chief judge
would not be solely responsible for such an
assignment, to use such a retired judge
whom the people of Maryland had confi-
dence in, whose faculties were sound and
who would be able to help the court in the
conduct of its business.
In fact, there are a number of judges in
Maryland who although they have been re-
tired would be perfectly effective in sign-
ing motions so that the judges who were ,of
a younger age could stand the rigors of
trial, could preside over the trials of causes.
For that reason we feel, fellow delegates,
that as we are attempting to modernize our
court system, make it responsible that we
should be able to call on this reserve of
judges who although they have passed sev-
enty are still able to carry on the work of
the judiciary if the chief judge in the
Court of Appeals and his six associates
would so deem it.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Does anyone wish to speak in favor of the
amendment? Delegate Rybczynski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Mr. Chair-
man, needless to say, it takes some amount
of consideration on my part to rise on a
proposition such as this. However, my ex-
perience in the courts of the City of Balti-
more indicates that this is a good amend-
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ment and that the report of the majority
is not good.
Now, those of you who have been in the
federal courts of the City of Baltimore, or
the district of Maryland, all remember a
certain judge who was a very scholarly
gentleman but who sat up at the judge's
bench with an eyeshade so that the lights
would not hurt his eyes, and who sat there
with a tremendous magnifying glass so
that he could read the documents, who had
difficulty distinguishing the people who
were appearing before him, who took time
to tell all sorts of stories and who, on oc-
casion, when he found fault with the pro-
ceedings, would commence to take a half-
hour or three-quarters of an hour to chas-
tise people in a matter of no consequence
that should have taken two or three
seconds.
That is just one example.
Another example which comes to me is a
judge who at nearly seventy was at the
point where he simply could not remember
anything and would have to retire to his
chambers with the court stenographer to
have all the testimony read back to him
again so that he might render an opinion.
As I said before, it is not easy for me
to arrive at an answer on a question like
this but as I told you yesterday, I have to
live with this system for thirty-five more
years if I live that long.
Now, what is another aspect of the same
question? Another aspect is if Judge A at
seventy-two is capable and Judge B at
seventy-two is not capable and Judge A
gets assigned for ten days, who wants the
job of telling Judge B that he is not ca-
pable? Who wants to meet him eye to eye
or on the telephone and say "Judge, you
are over the hill now, and even though we
gave ten days of duty to Judge A he is all
right, but we think you are senile. "
Who wants that job? Who would like to
be the clerk to have to sit behind that desk
to tell the judge that he is no longer
capable?
Ladies and gentlemen of this Committee,
you have a perfectly valid first sentence on
line 6. Each judge shall retire at the age
of seventy. There is a reason why that
sentence is there.
True, it is an arbitrary figure, the same
as the voting age of twenty-one is an ar-
bitrary figure, but you hope to strike a
happy medium.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Your time is up.
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