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be the shock absorber, so to speak, to pick
up the increase or, as the circumstances
may require, to increase its jurisdiction
and thereby, to increase its jurisdiction and
thereby relieve the court of last resort.
Do I make it clear?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Bushong.
DELEGATE BUSHONG: Delegate
Mudd, do you contemplate the district
court's being a court of record?
DELEGATE MUDD: We have a memo
on that, Delegate Bushong, from our very
able staff man, and that can be done by
the legislature.
It is our thought that probably all four
of these courts will be courts of record.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Blair.
DELEGATE BLAIR: Delegate Mudd,
do you have any statistics as to the num-
ber of people's courts and municipal courts
that you have to compare in ratio to the
number of district judges that may be
necessary to compensate the manning of
these courts?
DELEGATE MUDD: We obtained a
wealth of information on that and I have
forgotten how much of it is set forth in
our memorandum. I do not believe it is.
I might say we had a subcommittee of
the Committee on the Judicial Branch
headed by Delegate Bradshaw to try to
evaluate the cost to the state of taking
over and providing the manpower for the
system we propose.
In that connection we tried to ascertain
how many judges were required but it
varies in the jurisdictions depending upon
the nature and culture of the area. Obvi-
ously an arterial highway through a small
populated area can generate a lot of traffic
tickets.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Blair.
DELEGATE BLAIR: My question is di-
rected mostly to the question of what the
financial cost would be to man these dis-
trict courts.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Mudd.
DELEGATE MUDD: May I refer that
to the chairman of our subcommittee, Mr.
Chairman, who may have the facts and
figures with him?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Bradshaw,
can you respond to the inquiry from Dele-
gate Blair?
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DELEGATE BRADSHAW: Yes, Mr.
Chairman. We sought out the assistance of
the fiscal bureau, and Mr. O'Dell Smith of
that bureau was assigned with Dr. Cooper
to develop factual information which we
might find useful.
We have a vast amount of research ma-
terial, most of which has not been correlated
or compiled into usable material here for
debate on the floor.
But to answer your question quickly, it
is Mr. Smith's conclusion that it would
cost the State of Maryland, not the locality,
because our system, of course, is going to
be a statewide system, approximately
$250,000 more per year to inaugurate this
fulltime statewide judicial system.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Blair.
DELEGATE BLAIR: Delegate Mudd, .
one other question. Was any consideration
given to having a court set aside solely
for the purpose of traffic matters, as dis-
tinguished from the other matters that
come before these lower courts.
DELEGATE MUDD: Not at our Com-
mittee level, but we feel that the functional
divisions which may be created by rule
could, for instance, perpetuate in Baltimore
City a functional division of a court of
limited jurisdiction that dealt only with
traffic matters, if that was the desire of a
particular jurisdiction.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Willoner.
DELEGATE WILLONER: I have a
question on section 5.11 on page 4, where
you set forth jurisdiction of commissioners.
You state: "Commissioners may exercise
powers only with respect to warrants of
arrest, collateral and incarceration pend-
ing hearing, and then only as prescribed
by rule."
Do you mean to include in that release
on terms other than bail?
DELEGATE MUDD: The complete sec-
tion is prescribed by rule, but it would be
my personal guess that the rule would be
liberal in that respect.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Willoner.
DELEGATE WILLONER: Except, "only
as prescribed by rule" unfortunately refers
only to "warrants of arrest, collateral and
incarceration pending hearing. . ."
I would assume this jurisdiction cannot
be expanded by rule.
DELEGATE MUDD: Our interpretation
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