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little or no duties, but will find that his
office has been left with routine functions?
THE CHAIRMAN: I think that state-
ment is absolutely correct to the extent
that it pertains to the purely judicial duties
of the sheriff and is equally incorrect in-
sofar as it pertains to non-judicial duties.
I include in non-judicial duties police
powers.
Are you ready for the question?
THE CHAIRMAN: Ring the quorum
bell, please.
The question arises on the adoption of
Amendment No. 60. A vote Aye is a vote
in favor of the amendment; a vote No is a
vote against.
Cast your votes.
Has every delegate voted? Does any dele-
gate desire to change his vote?
The Clerk will record the vote.
There being 50 votes in the affirmative
and 76 in the negative, the motion is lost
and the amendment is rejected.
Pages will please distribute amendment
Q. This will be Amendment No. 61 to ac-
company Minority Report JB-1 to Com-
mittee Recommendation JB-1 by delegates
Johnson, Harkness, Hickman, Kahl, Mur-
phy, Siewierski, and Rush: On page 9 fol-
lowing section 5.30 add the following sec-
tion: "Registers of Wills. The General As-
sembly may prescribe by law for a register
of wills in any county of the State. The
selection, tenure and compensation of the
register of wills shall be prescribed by
law. The General Assembly may prescribe
by law for clerks in the office of register
of wills upon certification of need from the
chief judge of the Superior Court. The
powers and duties of the register of wills
shall be prescribed by rule."
Is there a second?
(The motion was duly seconded.)
Amendment No. 61 having been seconded,
the Chair recognizes Delegate Johnson to
speak to the amendment.
DELEGATE JOHNSON: Mr. Chairman,
I yield whatever time is allotted, I believe
five minutes under the controlled time.
THE CHAIRMAN: Ten minutes.
DELEGATE JOHNSON: Ten minutes.
I yield the time to Delegate Rybczynski.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Rybczynski.
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DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Mr. Chair-
man and ladies and gentlemen of the Con-
vention: I have a pretty good notion but I
think this might very well be the last
amendment to this article, and I feel pretty
good about it, because we have a winner at
this time. We are starting out first of all
with a few admissions previously read to
us.
First, as you will recall, Chairman Mudd
more than a few minutes ago, admitted
that this is a quasi-judicial office and he
expects that his Committee will recommend
that this office continue on. He suggested
that possibly it will become that of deputy
to the superior court clerk's office. How-
ever, the important thing is that it is a
very important office and it must remain
as such.
Secondly, you will recall that Delegate
Hutchinson gave us that very inspiring
talk about the necessity of keeping all elec-
tive offices. In addition to that, Delegate
Scanlan pointed out yesterday in his very
eloquent speech about judges that we do
have the same system or the probate sys-
tem within the federal court in Washing-
ton, D. C., so that you can see I have stood
up on this question with great confidence.
Now, for just a very tiny little bit of
history, I find that first enactment within
our past having to do with the register of
wills office goes back to 1877. Chapter 87
of that year starts the ball moving on the
register of wills office.
Now, I would like to point out to you the
salient differences between this office and
the normal duties of the regular superior
court clerk as we will note in the future.
First the clerk of the court can be classi-
fied generally as a keeper of the record
and a keeper of order within the courtroom
itself. Generally, attorneys will file papers
. with the clerk, the clerk will record them,
he will docket them, he will bring the files
to the courtroom. This is generally in this
business.
However, listen to some of these things
that are the responsibility of the register
of wills. He stores the wills for safe keep-
ing for those who want them stored. Under
his jurisdiction, we have appraisers, ac-
countants. He has clerks whose job it is to
keep files moving, not just to keep them in
the office, but to actually see to it that the
work is going on and that the file keeps
moving. He is at power to admit wills to
probate. He is at power to open estates
with or without wills. At times his deputies
must go out and hunt up witnesses or visit
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