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stitutional amendment will not be neces-
sary. Under the Committee recommenda-
tion, the functions and duties of the chief
judge of the Court of Appeals will also be
such as to curtail severely the time which
he will be allowed to participate in the
Court of Appeals and its decision-making
process, so that we essentially have six full
time judges on the Court of Appeals should
the Committee recommendation be adopted.
It is for this reason, and the flexibility
which it would provide, that the amend-
ment is submitted here for your support.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any delegate
desire to speak in opposition? Delegate
Mudd?
DELEGATE MUDD: Mr. Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen of the Committee of
the Whole, I rise to speak in opposition to
the amendment. The facts cited by Dele-
gate Singer in support of his amendment
regarding the change in the size of the
Court of Appeals all occurred prior to the
creation of the speal court of appeals, now
to be known as the intermediate court of
appeals.
Our research in Committee convinces us
that the Court of Appeals is intended as a
court of last resort to sit as a single court
and not in panel.
Seven seems to be the ideal number,
based on statistics available from all other
states in the union. Only five states of the
fifty have more than seven judges on their
Court of Appeals or court of last resort,
and in those five states, the number is nine.
80 per cent of the States in the Union have
from five to seven judges on the Court of
Appeals, or the court of last resort.
If this highest court in Maryland is to
function as we propose by our majority
recommendation as the court of last resort
in the State, and retain its appellate
powers, with the limit to original jurisdic-
tion as prescribed in the constitution, it
is the considered judgment of the Com-
mittee that it can best function as a seven-
man court, and without any increase in the
number of judges. We therefore oppose the
amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any delegate
desire to speak in favor of the amend-
ment? Delegate Storm?
DELEGATE STORM: I realize that
with the new intervening court and the
flexibility that that has that there is a
chance that the court will be able to handle
the appellate cases without an imposition
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on the highest court. Those gentlemen at
the present time, I think, are among the
hardest working people in the State, and
as Maryland grows, and as we have heard
in the last few days, how our population
will explode continuously, especially as
some of the smaller counties strive for
better representation, and emphasize not
having birth control, there will be so many
people going into the courts, that I am
afraid if W3 have one Court of Appeals to
be the ultimate body, there may come a
time in the future when, to keep these
judges from being overworked, they should
add a few more. I will admit that the
amendments made to this article in the
past, in my lifetime, came before the inter-
mediate court was established but if this
constitution is going to serve this State
for so many years in the future, then un-
less the authority of the Court of Appeals
is going to be diluted and most of the
cases decided in the intermediate court, and
I expect this to a certain degree, still I
believe the Court of Appeals should have
the right to go to the legislature without a
constitutional amendment and say we need
a couple of more. Right now I think they
have been overworked, so I am just plead-
ing for fair labor practices for the appel-
late court. Thank you.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair recog-
nizes Delegate Henderson to speak in op-
position to the amendment.
DELEGATE HENDERSON: Mr. Chair-
man, fellow delegates, I might almost say
that I am arising on a point of personal
privilege because I did have the privilege
of sitting on the eight-judge court prior to
1944, on the five-judge court, the seven and
the six and again on the seven-judge court
before my retirement.
I want to say, without any qualification,
that I regard a seven-judge court as the
maximum number of judges that can prop-
erly confer and lay down the law for the
State. It seems to me anything more than
gets into the workings of Parkinson's law,
and the work increases in proportion to
the number of judges. You either do that,
the additional time that is taken in con-
ferring, or you go to a pan:! system, in
which the one hand doesn't know what the
other hand is doing, and it is a very un-
satisfactory system.
Now on the other hand, the panel sys-
tem in the intermediate court is quite
w rkable and quite acceptable because you
have the stop-gap there, the saving clause,
that th? cases can be reviewed on certiorari,
so if there is any difference betwen the
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