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DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Assuming
six members of the bar in Garrett County,
if you should be fortunate enough to get
one member of the Court of Appeals, one
circuit court judge, one district judge and
one commissioner, is it not true that you
will be reduced to two practicing members
of the bar in Garrett County?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Grant?
DELEGATE GRANT: This is the rea-
son I said that I was most reluctant. I
might point out that the summertime popu-
lation rises to 56,000 people, when we have
all the people up there to enjoy the cool
weather and not the six inches of snow
we have now, and that with one judge rep-
resenting 23,000 or 28,000 people and one
attorney representing the other 28,000
people it would be quite a day.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: One fur-
ther question, Mr. Chairman. In view of
the fact that the Court of Appeals has
sworn in this morning a new crop of young
lawyers, how is the health of the six in
Garrett County?
DELEGATE GRANT: We can always
stand some help.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is there any further
discussion?
Delegate Pullen.
DELEGATE PULLEN: May I ask Dele-
gate Grant a question?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Grant, do
you yield to a question?
DELEGATE GRANT: Yes, indeed.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Pullen.
DELEGATE PULLEN: I am disturbed
by the unanimity among lawyers. It is not
very healthy. I am very serious about this
question: is it correct that a person in-
volved in a traffic violation at Red House,
which I know very well, would have to go
all the way to Cumberland to be tried?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Grant?
DELEGATE GRANT: That is correct.
We actually now have a trial magistrate
who sits seven days a week, correction, six
days a week and normally in a traffic vio-
lation he is brought over a distance of about
18 miles for trial. Without this facility,
assuming a man bound for California or
someplace and you did not have a district
court where he could be tried, then it would
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simply be a matter of having him taken to
Cumberland and it is a 70 mile trip. Cum-
berland is the logical place to put a dis-
trict court if you are to calculate by work
load, because you would have to indicate the
heavy work load would be in Allegany
County, which has 80,000 people as opposed
to Garrett County, which has only 20,000.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Pullen.
DELEGATE PULLEN: I have one
other question, sir. I am quite familiar
with the geography and the people of Gar-
rett County, but the thing that bothers me
is, is it possible under this provision for
the court to sit sufficiently in, say, Oak-
land, which is the center of the county?
These are two, simple, fundamental facts
that we ought to know before we vote.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Grant.
DELEGATE GRANT: I think you are
quite correct. If you recall yesterday I ad-
dressed a question to Delegate Mudd, and
asked him essentially if it was his inten-
tion that the court would sit regularly in
the county. He indicated that there had
been a county clerk provided, and he pre-
sumed that the court would sit there regu-
larly.
I also asked him relative to the trans-
lation, if it would be possible for the su-
perior court judge to sit in this court. He
indicated that this would also be possible.
However, I do point out to you that if for
some reason or other the superior court
judge were in some other part of the State
on an assignment, that it probably would
be necessary to take the man to Cumber-
land, unless that happened to be the day
that the district court judge was sitting in
Garrett County.
This would particularly be so because it
would not be possible to appoint a com-
missioner to hear this type of case under
the action taken by the Committee of the
Whole this morning.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for
the question?
(Call for the question.)
The question arises on the adoption of
Amendment No. 18. Delegate Malkus.
DELEGATE MALKUS: May I say one
thing in closing?
THE CHAIRMAN: You may.
DELEGATE MALKUS: I doubt seri-
ously that what I am going to say will
have any effect on any of your votes, but
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