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Delegate Johnson, do you desire to offer
your amendment AY? I should say the
Chair feels that it would not be in order,
that it is covered by Amendments 13 and
14, both of which were rejected.
DELEGATE JOHNSON: I believe that
is the case, Mr. Chairman.
THE CHAIRMAN: All right.
Are there any other amendments to sec-
tion 5.11? Delegate Chabot?
DELEGATE CHABOT: I call up
Amendment BK.
THE CHAIRMAN: The page will please
distribute Amendment BK.
This will be Amendment No. 17. The
Clerk will read the amendment.
READING CLERK: Amendment No. 17
to Committee Recommendation JB-1, by
Delegate Chabot: On page 4, Section 5.11
Commissioners in line 4 following the
period, add the sentence:
"No commissioner may issue a warrant
of arrest unless he is a member of the
bar of the State."
THE CHAIRMAN: Is the amendment
seconded?
(Wliercupon the amendment was duly
seconded.)
DELEGATE BENNETT: Second.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Bennett
seconded the amendment.
The Chair recognizes Delegate Chabot to
speak to the amendment.
DELEGATE CHABOT: Mr. Chairman,
yesterday we dealt with the question of
whether Commissioners should be author-
ized by rule to issue search warrants and
the majority of this body, I might say the
overwhelming majority, came to the con-
clusion that we would not want commis-
sioners who may be non-lawyers to be able
to authorize anyone to search through the
personal effects of any individual.
I think that it was clearly stated by
Delegate Carson, as well as by others, that
certainly if we have this high regard for
the papers and effects of people, we ought
to have at least as high regard for their
liberty.
As a practical matter, arrest records can
mark a person through life, whether the
arrest was a proper one or not.
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We have had many instances brought to
the attention of the public in the news-
papers in recent years, and especially in
recent months, of the frequent effect of the
practice of making public to anyone who
requests it the arrest records of any person
who has applied for a job.
. In these matters the question of whether
the person was ultimately acquitted or con-
victed, or what finally happened as a result
of the arrest, often turns out to be irrele-
vant. If you have an arrest record, you
find it difficult to get a job. You find it
difficult to attain other positions.
I suggest that although requiring that
an arrest warrant be issued only by an
attorney is not an absolute safeguard — we
have seen the tremendous amount of litiga-
tion that has gone through all the courts,
including the Supreme Court, with regard
to warrants issued even by judges — never-
theless, I think that it is a basic, minimal
requirement that we must set in the con-
stitution that a non-lawyer, no matter how
well supervised by the judge who appoints
him, should not be permitted to issue an
arrest warrant.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Mudd.
DELEGATE MUDD: Mr. Chairman and
ladies and gentlemen of the Committee of
the Whole: may I say that our Committee
is entirely sympathetic with the views ex-
pressed by Delegate Chabot and the spirit
that prompted his amendment here before
us.
We feel that this is a responsible duty
that is proposed to be assigned to these
commissioners. However, this matter was
considered at some length in the Commit-
tee, and our problem, Delegate Chabot and
ladies and gentlemen, is that as sympa-
thetic as we are with the rights you pro-
pose to be protected by lawyers, that we
feel in the rural areas where manpower,
particularly in the trade of the law, is at
a premium, that such requirement would
seriously cripple and hamper the opera-
tion of the commissioner system as we en-
vision it.
We do feel that, having adopted the idea
that these commissioners be appointed by
the district judge and therefore the selec-
tion being made by someone trained in the
law, that throws a safeguard around the
situation as much as we could hope to ac-
complish within the present court struc-
ture throughout the State of Maryland.
We envision these commissioners to be
trained to some extent in the legal pro-
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