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any official is that he must be a policy-
making official. The clerk performs only
administrative duties and there is no justi-
fication for electing such an official unless
you want to make this office a political
football and permit an elective clerk to
obstruct justice.
This is a most inappropriate way to pro-
vide a check or balance on the judiciary.
We should have appointive clerks at all
levels. Because of the heterogenous type of
duties is no reason to provide for election.
This is the only substantial variance which
the Committee on the Judiciary Branch
came out with with regard to the draft of
the Constitutional Convention Commission
which carefully considered this question.
This section had the support of the
barest majority of the Judicial Branch
Committee and in view of the fact that
Delegate Marvin Smith changed his mind,
the majority report no longer represents
the majority view, and I therefore suggest
we support the amendment which repre-
sents the majority view of the Judicial
Branch Committee.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Child.
DELEGATE CHILD: Mr. Chairman, I
do not know anything about the larger
clerk's offices, and I do not know anything
about the smaller clerk's offices because I
only have about forty years' experience
down there. I did not know until I came
up here that the judges of the court in
Worcester County spent most of their time
out hunting.
But I was very glad to learn that from
a delegate from Baltimore City and I will
be very glad to convey that information to
the people on the Shore, not only as to
Worcester County but of the other counties
in the first judicial circuit.
Now, getting to this amendment, I am
certainly against the amendment because
it is certainly not a practical one. Anyone
who has worked in the clerk's office as long
as I have, not as an employee, but in
searching titles and in various other kinds
of work, knows that all of the records must
be together.
If you have one clerk to attend to the
judicial branch functions only, then this
clerk must attend and record the equity
records. He must record the judgment
records.
Then another clerk under this amend-
ment would be in a different clerk's office
with a different set of employees recording
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deeds, recording mortgages, and so forth,
so that a person searching a title would
have to go first to one office and then the
other, because I submit that anyone who
has searched title, and I certainly presume
that some of you lawyers have, knows you
must examine the chancery record and the
judgment record and the Federal tax rec-
ord and the mechanics lien record.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Child, you
have one-quarter minute.
DELEGATE CHILD: This amendment
would set up two clerks offices when only
one is necessary. It would have two sets of
employees, it would take ten years to un-
scramble the duties and the records of the
two courts.
I am against the amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is there any other
delegate that desires to speak in favor of
the amendment?
Delegate Murray.
DELEGATE E. C. MURRAY: Mr.
Chairman, I must speak in favor of the
amendment and I base it solely upon the
experience in my own county, and it is
obvious that the situation differs so in
other counties that this may affect the vote.
As has been stated here, and there is
no use taking time to repeat it, the duties
of the so-called clerk of the court in my
county are endless. I think a time will come
and I think this is the logical time to
separate those duties, to create truly a
clerk of the court who I suggest should be
appointed and have the county re-establish
what it had some years ago, a county
clerk.
For that reason, I support the Minority
Report.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Morgan.
DELEGATE MORGAN: Mr. Chairman,
I just want to propose a parliamentary in-
quiry.
THE CHAIRMAN: State the inquiry.
DELEGATE MORGAN: Would an
amendment providing for a county clerk to
perform non-judicial functions be in order
for the judicial branch article?
THE CHAIRMAN: I think the amend-
ment would be in order, but I think the
Committee on Style, Drafting and Ar-
rangement when it got it would separate
it and put one portion in the judicial ar-
ticle and the other portion in the executive
branch article.
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