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DELEGATE JETT: Mr. President, I
feel in the strongest terms that we are
obliged as lawyers to vote this proposal
down. We constitute a large majority of
this Convention. We have an article in
here that has taken up a lot of time of this
Convention. We have insulated our judges
so that they are almost impervious to pub-
lic pressures. We are saying that they run
on the record. What is the record, and who
knows the record, and who could know it
any better than the lawyers?
I say it is an aspersion on the lawyers
as a profession to say that they will vote
wrongly about this thing. Every lawyer
who goes into court knows that one side
will win and one side is going to lose, and
he knows a good judge and a bad judge.
I think the public is entitled to know
what the lawyers feel about that judge. I
think that we cannot shirk this responsi-
bility. If we will have judges who will
represent the people who will clearly de-
cide cases before them, then the public is
entitled to know how those judges operate,
and what the lawyers who appear before
them every day feel about their ability.
I feel it is our obligation, particularly as
lawyers, to insist that this poll be taken,
and the public given the benefits of it. I
hope you will vote down Delegate Bam-
berger's amendment.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Dukes.
DELEGATE DUKES: It is obviously
with considerable reflection that I rise to
oppose a small-town lawyer, Delegate
Mudd, and decide with big-city lawyer
Delegate Bamberger. In the first, second
and third grades we elected class officers,
and everybody put their heads down and
closed their eyes and voted. I would have
no intention of voting for a secret election.
I would relish the opportunity to tell the
judges what I think about them. I would
be happy to do it in public. If you want
the public to know what they think of
judges, let the lawyers step up and say
what they think. Do not do it secretly.
The main thing I enjoy when I go to the
courtroom is that Judge Dorsey may think
I am a stupid idiot, and he may tell me so,
and he may also tell my opponent.
I ask that a judge have no fear of the
public or lawyers; that he have no fear
from any human being on the face of the
earth. I have no desire to vote in secret
what I think about him.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Hanson,
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DELEGATE HANSON: I rise to sup-
port the amendment offered by Delegate
Bamberger, and to first of all say I am in
full agreement with the arguments that
have been made.
I think there are a couple of others
which perhaps the delegates ought to be
reminded of. I think there is a very basic
problem in polling, whether you are polling
lawyers or anybody else, and this is first
of all in deciding whom you poll, in this
case the constitution would say the lawyers.
Well, now, there you get into a fairly large
universe in some instances.
Delegate Jett says the lawyers who ap-
pear all the time before these judges know
them, but I would submit that the larger
portion of the lawyers in the area do not
appear all of the time, or even with fre-
quency, before the judges, and consequently
they know no more about them than I
would know as a lawyer about the per-
formance of those judges on the bench.
Why should jurors who sit before the
judge for sometimes weeks or months at a
time not be polled about what they think
of the performance of the judge? Cer-
tainly they have seen him perform. They
are able to reflect on that performance.
They should be able to make a judgment
and to advise us on whether or not this
judge is a good judge, and a fair judge, a
compassionate judge, a learned judge, a
lucid judge, a sober judge. These are
things that we would need to know in
making our selection of a judge or decid-
ing whether or not to retain a judge. But
no, we would not poll the jurors who have
sat before this judge. We would poll only
the attorneys who have tried cases before
the judge, or who are directly familiar
with his decisions.
No, we would poll all the attorneys in
the area. Would we poll those who are
members of the bar, and have practiced
before that court of which the judge is a
member? No, we would poll all.
It seems to me that if hearsay is a bad
rule in court, it is also a bad rule in polling,
and I think that this is just basically ill-
advised as public policy. It is especially
ill-advised as a constitutional requirement
because, if we find as I think we will that
in practice it does not work very well, we
then will have to go to a constitutional
amendment to remove the requirement. I
think we should allow the courts or allow
the bar associations the latitude of skill-
fully doing this all by themselves without
any necessity of taking it to constitutional
amendment.
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