Executing warrant $1.00
Conveying defendants to jail 1.00
For executing bail piece 1.00
Executing search warrants 1.00
For serving subpoena .50
For arresting on a capias 1.00
For notifying plaintiff where defendant has
been arrested .25
For advertising sale of goods 1.00
For holding appraisement where exemption is
claimed 4.00
For attending election 3.00
For travelling expenses in the performance of
any duty required by law, for each mile
travelled .06
It is evident that the office is lucrative, and lucrative just in
proportion to the ability of the alderman to get customers. The
anomaly extends to every branch of the office,--a state judicial
officer with an income depending on the volume of the litigation
instituted in his office.
It was a wise provision of the Legislature that permitted appeals by
right, rather than by allowance, providing the amount involved is over
$5.33. Practically all cases therefore involving any real controversy
are appealed. A defendant is given twenty days in which to take his
appeal. The procedure is simple, a transcript or copy of the alderman's
record is obtained, the costs paid or bail given for debt, interest
and costs, and the transcript then filed in the higher court where the
case is begun over again just as if it had not been already tried. As
the discretion of the alderman in allowance of bail is a factor, the
costs are generally paid at the time the appeal is taken. In any case,
they must be paid then or when the appeal is disposed of. If they are
not paid at the time the appeal is taken, when the case is disposed of
in the higher court, the alderman's costs are kept out of the amount
realized and may be demanded by the alderman, his transcript being the
evidence from which the higher court determines what disposition has
been made of the costs. Cases have come to the writer's attention where
although the costs were paid at the time of taking the appeal yet the
alderman's transcript has been endorsed, "Costs not paid by defendant."
If such a transcript were filed without the detection of the error,
upon final disposition of the case the alderman would be in a position
to demand his costs a second time from the prothonotary of the higher
court and receive double pay.
Remembering that every case appealed from an alderman is retried,
with costs to be paid over again, it is interesting to consider how
much time is occupied by the Common Pleas Courts in such review work.
In Allegheny there are four Common Pleas Courts. As the courts are
separate and independent, litigation may be commenced in any one of
them. So great has been the litigation in recent years that all these
courts are far behind in their work, two being at least four years
behind, the others at least two. Taking at random a term,--three
months' business,--in one of the courts which is four years behind, we
find 1,342 docket entries. It would be safe to say that about 1,000
entries would represent new suits, which should in due course result in
jury trials. Of these 322 were cases appealed from aldermen, _i. e._
work already done and paid for, to be done over again. In these cases
counting the costs actually paid we have a total of $1,322.08, and
this in one term of one court. There are four terms to each court and
four courts. The time occupied in retrying appeals from aldermen can
be appreciated. In 1897 it was estimated that one-fourth of the work
of the Common Pleas Courts consisted of the re-trial of such appeals
with an aggregate of about $12,000 paid for costs in such cases prior
to their determination in the Common Pleas Courts. From the figures
previously given it appears that the proportion is about the same now
although the increase in the volume of litigation has swelled the costs
to about $15,000.
Taking four consecutive terms, one at each court, we find 667
alderman's appeals in the two courts which are four years behind,
and 105 alderman's appeals in the two courts which are two years
behind. By law an affidavit is required with each appeal that it is
not taken for delay, but the above figures indicate that this oath is
disregarded. So much for civil matters, where only money and time are
involved. It is the criminal side of the alderman's court where liberty
is involved, that arouses greatest sympathy. Summary convictions, or
proceedings under special statutes where the aldermen can impose a fine
and commit to jail on default, and proceedings for the determination
of the existence of the essentials of a crime, comprise the criminal
jurisdiction of an alderman just as it stood in the reign of Edward III
in the fourteenth century.
Criminal proceedings generally are instituted by a warrant of arrest
issuing upon a complaint under oath,--an information. From this
information made before the alderman a warrant issues on which the
accused is taken into custody. A hearing must then promptly be held;
and the alderman decides whether there is sufficient evidence to hold
the defendant for court; if so the prisoner is held for bail if the
offense is bailable, or committed to jail in default. The alderman must
then within five days return a transcript of this proceeding to a clerk
of the Court of Quarter Sessions, this court being the criminal court
of the county. Considerable hardship may be done by the failure of the
alderman to return his record within the five days required by law;
cases have been known where through neglect prisoners have been kept in
jail a month before the matter has been brought to the attention of the
district attorney's office and the alderman made to produce his papers.
It will thus be seen that although the alderman acts in this respect
only as a committing magistrate, yet on his decision rests whether the
prisoner be committed to jail; for although the offense may be bailable
the question of bail in the case of poor people is very material.
The writer has known cases where bail has been set at $1,000 on an
information for assault and battery.
The power to arrest is a very important one which under any
circumstances should be exercised only with sound discretion. One
constable in Pittsburgh arrested a foreigner at night. Having no
warrant he took him to an alderman's office, where he found the
alderman out, and pretentiously used the telephone to locate him, with
no results. Then substantially the following conversation took place:
"Now ---- you, I will be the squire myself," taking his place behind
the railing.
"How much money have you?" The prisoner was found to have a few dollars
on his person.
"Well you are fined $---- (the exact amount the prisoner had with him)
and discharged. Now get out."
The fine was pocketed and the prisoner permitted to go. It is probable
that the constable was drunk, but the abuse is only the more apparent.
In another case an educated German was studying manufacturing methods
and spent much time in the neighborhood of the steel mills. One
evening he saw an alderman's constable, whom he knew by sight, on a
street car handcuffed to a prisoner. With Teutonic curiosity he asked
the details of the case. The constable, who was under the influence
of liquor, beckoned the German over to him and deftly handcuffed him
also. The German, of course, thought the affair a little joke. He was,
however, taken to jail, but refused by the warden, because there was
no warrant for his confinement. The constable then took the prisoner
outside, and when they reached Diamond street asked him how much money
he had. The German really had $600 or $700 on his person, but replied
that he had only a few dollars, producing some bills and small change.
The constable told him he would release him for $3.50. This the German
paid and got his liberty. The latter was leaving the city the next day
and, as he was a steel expert representing a foreign government, could
not possibly remain to prosecute the constable. It is not likely that
such abuses are common, but their existence indicates the possibilities
of abuse of a system which provides for no form of supervision.
There are costs connected with all these criminal matters. These
costs the defendant if guilty is supposed to pay. But the fact that
an alderman entertains a frivolous information does not prevent his
being paid for his work. If the case is discharged the county pays.
If the prisoner is committed and the case ignored by the grand jury
the county pays. The percentage of bills ignored by the grand jury is
sometimes as high as seventy-two per cent. This means that seventy-two
per cent of persons brought before the alderman have either been put in
jail or held for bail on evidence not sufficient for the basing of an
indictment. In all such cases the aldermen are secured in their costs,
and as we have seen in 1907 the costs returned in such discharged
criminal cases to the various aldermen and justices of the peace and
sundry officers amounted to $26,724.45. Taking the year 1907, we find
that for the support of the criminal court the county was put to a
net expense of about $150,000. By law aldermen must pay over to the
county all or sometimes a proportion of fines collected depending on
the special act of assembly. These fines are supposed to be voluntarily
accounted for, and up to very recently very little attempt was made
to test the accuracy of such returns. In 1896, however, the county
controller inaugurated a system of auditing the criminal dockets of
aldermen for the better ascertainment of the county's share of such
fines. The returns that year increased seventy-five per cent and have
been increasing steadily ever since, although in 1907 the total amount
returned to the controller in such cases was but $3,714.20.
In brief the whole aldermanic system is defective. At the threshold
we find an office the income of which is derived from fees, depending
upon the volume of business. Plaintiffs are customers, the more the
merrier. Impartiality is impossible, and decision on merits almost
unheard of. The fee system, which causes the injustice and corruption,
has come down to us from colonial times, a relic of the days when the
public purse was too lean to permit paying salaries to minor judicial
officers. From a wise public economy this fee system has become, with
the growth of the country, a source both of injustice and of extreme
expense to the public at large. It should have been abandoned long ago,
but through the indifference of the public and the political influence
of the aldermen it remains and flourishes.
The second radical defect of the aldermanic system is that the office
is mixed with politics. An effort was made a few years ago to abolish
the aldermanic courts, and it is a matter of history how sudden a death
the movement met at the state capital. One of the judges of the county
bench in discussing the matter recently expressed the opinion that no
act of assembly could be passed to remedy the situation, because of
the political influence of the aldermen. It has been the boast of this
country that the judiciary is not swayed by politics, but here in the
subordinate courts we have a branch of the judiciary so steeped in
politics that the squire's office as a campaign center and a place of
political organizing rivals the saloon.
Third, we have the almost ludicrous case of judicial officers who
with noteworthy exceptions are not learned in the law, are sometimes
uncouth, generally ignorant, and have made their mistakes, not only
in law, but in grammar, a source of constant lampooning. These are
proverbial. The grave decisions of the higher courts that aldermen are
state judicial officers presiding over judicial courts has a flavor of
irony.
Fourth, the geographical distribution of these courts, and their
concurrent jurisdiction, permit plaintiffs by taking their cases to the
outlying wards to use aldermanic courts for purposes of annoyance and
spite, permit competition among the aldermen, and result in a general
demoralization.
We are driven to three conclusions: that the aldermanic system as found
in Pittsburgh is always extravagant, that it is generally inefficient,
that it is often corrupt.
Were the minor litigation handled by an efficient tribunal, not only
would respect for law among the masses be restored, but the county
courts would be relieved of a considerable portion of their work, and
thus be enabled to clear their crowded calendars. This would remedy at
one stroke an abuse, and solve a problem which occupies the attention
of the whole bench and bar.
Pittsburgh is not alone in this problem. Conditions in Chicago a few
years ago were similar. Their justice of the peace system had outgrown
its justification, had become corrupt and woefully inefficient.
Nothing had been done because of the political power of the justices
and the necessity of an amendment of the state constitution. But the
people took up the problem in a way that brought something about. The
state constitution was amended, a municipal court organized, and as a
result Chicago, in an incredibly short time, got rid of most of the
evils of the old system. The Chicago solution was a municipal court
of a distinctive type. A chief justice and twenty-seven associate
judges with salaries, preside over a court having branches in the
chief centers of the city. The court in its first six months disposed
of 40,610 cases, of which but ninety-two were carried to the State
Appellant Court.
The Pittsburgh problem is that of creating a system along lines
which would serve Pittsburgh as well or better, and which would link
efficiency with expedition, impartiality and economy,--a system which
would obtain immediate justice for the poor and the uninformed, and
would remedy the overworked condition of the county courts. Such a
system would save the public thousands of dollars a year.