fore, and is in line with customary American practice of creating a new office to take over the duties which existing officials have habitually neglected, instead of providing existing offices with the type of men and office organization adequate for the work which logically belongs to those offices. In the last analysis it will be the duty of the prosecuting attorney to enforce the faithful performance of the bond commissioner's duties. The new statute contains, however, at least two very valuable reforms. It makes the obligation of the bail bond a lien on the real estate of the surety from the date of the bond, and provides for the recording of these liens; and in actions on forfeited bonds it prohibits the court from giving judgment for any sum less than the full amount of the bond, except in cases in which the original defendant has surrendered or been recaptured.

CASES IN THE APPELLATE COURT

About 13 per cent. of the contested cases which result in convictions are taken to the Court of Appeals on questions of law. The decisions of this court have an important bearing on the interpretation of the criminal laws and the validity of effective methods of law enforcement. In the interests of justice the man who carries his case to an upper court should not receive any undeserved and avoidable advantages from delays or technicalities. The protection of the public's side of these cases in the appellate courts forms, therefore, an important duty of the prosecutor.

One of the judges of the Court of Appeals complained that the prosecuting attorney failed habitually to file briefs in these cases. An investigation of the basis for this charge was made, with the following results:

In the 76 cases filed and concluded in the years 1919 and 1920, briefs had been filed by the prosecutor in only 20. The plaintiff-in-error failed to file a brief in 22 cases. Eliminating these, on the principle that the prosecutor is not called upon to file a brief until his opponent's brief is filed, these records show that the prosecutor filed a brief in only 20 out of the 54 cases. Of the 76 cases, eight were dismissed for lack of preparation and eight for other reasons. Of the remaining 60, the conviction was affirmed in 44 and reversed in 16. In the 16 reversed cases no briefs were filed by either side in one case, while in the remaining 15 the prosecutor had filed briefs in four and failed to file briefs in 11. Taking the 60 cases in which the convictions were affirmed or reversed, the prosecutor lost 6.66 per cent. of them when he filed briefs, and three times as many, or 20 per cent., when he failed to file briefs.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FEDERAL COURT AND UNITED STATES ATTORNEY

T

COMPARISON IS POSSIBLE

HE administration of justice in the federal courts does not fall within the scope of this survey. For purposes of comparison, however, some inquiry has been made into the actual workings of the enforcement of the federal penal laws. By reason of the relatively small scope of federal penal law as compared with the State and municipal criminal law, and the relatively specialized nature of the offenses which come into the charge of the federal authorities, the task of the federal judge, when he sits in the criminal branch of the court, or of the federal prosecuting attorney, does not present all the complexities and difficulties faced by the county and municipal officials. If, however, within its field, the administration of the federal criminal law in the same city presents a picture of relative orderliness, efficiency, the accomplishment of its ends, and the enlistment of public confidence, surely there are lessons implicit in these results which must not be neglected.

The following summary gives the results of the federal criminal cases in the Northern District of Ohio (the federal judicial district, which includes Cleveland) for the year ending June 30, 1920, as reported to the Attorney General of the United States and included in his 1920 report. The fiscal year for which these reports are made runs from June 30 to June 30, and the year July 1, 1919, to June 30, 1920, furnished the official statistics nearest to the year of the county court tabulations in this report. The population of this district according to the census of 1920 was 3,195,651.

Pending at close of June 30, 1919.
Commenced during fiscal year.

Total

277

1,140

Comparing these results with those in the county courts, the differences are striking. For instance, the percentage of pleas of guilt in the federal cases terminated during the year is 78.7 per cent. In the felony cases in the county courts (Table 3) pleas of guilt were obtained in 37.02 per cent. of all the cases; or, if cases of acceptance of plea of a lesser offense be eliminated, pleas of guilt of original charge were obtained in 30.38 per cent.; or, eliminating cases bound over to the grand jury but in which no indictment was found, there the percentages were 47.1 per cent. for all pleas of guilt and 38.7 per cent. for pleas of guilt of original charge.

Of the 967 cases terminated during the year, the federal authorities found it necessary to try only 44 cases, or 4.55 per cent., of which 75 per cent. resulted in convictions; whereas the 590 trials in the county cases represented 23.2 per cent. of all cases terminated during the year, with convictions in 62.2 per cent. 16.7 per cent. of federal cases disposed of during the year were nolled or otherwise dismissed without trial, whereas 41.01 per cent. of all State cases were dropped and 24.8 per cent. of the indicted cases were nolled or otherwise dropped.

These figures indicate a relatively high efficiency in the federal administration in the preliminary stages of sifting out of the cases and preparing them.

The Southern District of New York (composed chiefly of the original city of New York-Manhattan) is the busiest of the federal judicial districts and has nearly as many penal cases as the Cuyahoga County courts. As reported in the 1920 report of the Attorney General, in the year ending June 30, 1920, there were 1,879 criminal cases terminated in that district, of which 1,160, or 61.7 per cent., resulted in pleas of guilty, and 1,221, or 65 per cent., resulted in convictions.

Federal cases, like State cases, can be begun in the grand jury or in a court of preliminary examination, namely, before a United States Commissioner. The United States Commissioners undoubtedly keep some. dockets or records of their own, but no dockets or records of the pendency of cases before commissioners or of the dispositions there are kept in the Cleveland district in the offices of the United States Clerk, and there are no official statistics of the history of cases in stages preceding the action thereon by the grand jury.

The United States Attorney's office in Cleveland keeps a book entitled "Complaint Docket," in which is recorded or presumed to be recorded the disposition previous to or by the grand jury of all cases which reach the stage of presentation to a commissioner. This book covers the Eastern Division of the Northern District of Ohio, which

division includes Cleveland. The results of the tabulation of the cases for the year ending June 30, 1920, as disclosed by this book, are stated in Table 25.

TABLE 25.-SUMMARY OF CASES ON THE "COMPLAINT DOCKET" OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1920

The Constitution of the United States requires a grand jury indictment in every case of "capital or otherwise infamous crime." This classification corresponds roughly with felonies. Consequently when a felony case is first heard by a United States Commissioner, there is the same sort of double preliminary hearings as in state felony cases. In crimes other than "infamous" the process of information, as distinguished from indictment, may be used with or without a preliminary hearing before the Commissioner. The accumulation of detail and drain upon facilities, human and otherwise, which double preliminary hearings entail, have caused the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where the volume of work has increased rapidly, to use the process of information predominantly where such use is permitted by law, and, in graver crimes, to present the majority of cases directly to the grand jury. Francis G. Caffey, until recently United States Attorney for that District, states that, except for the issuance of warrants, arraignments, fixing bail, and like formalities, comparatively little use is made of the commissioners and that only occasionally is there a preliminary hearing before a commissioner.

1 "No entry" signifies that the docket failed to specify the disposition. It may not be amiss to venture a warning that, with the growth of the quantity of federal penal cases due to federal liquor legislation and the other extensions of federal criminal law, the quality of the administration of federal criminal justice will deteriorate unless care be taken to keep the record and statistical system and other instrumentalities abreast of this growth.

As appears from Table 25, this development has not yet taken place in Cleveland, where the two hearings are held in a large majority of the cases. But even where this is true there is a striking contrast between the State and federal administration, in that a federal case is handled from beginning to end by the same prosecuting attorney's office, the United States Attorney and his assistants having charge of the case before the commissioner, the grand jury, and the trial jury; and, furthermore, the investigating and detecting machinery is a branch of the same department as that to which the United States Attorney belongs, namely, the Department of Justice. The Bureau of Investigation (corresponding in its functions to the detective branch of the police department) proceeds in its investigations under the direction of the United States Attorney. There is thus brought about a unity and continuity of method and responsibility which are absent from State cases. The procedure and atmosphere of the federal criminal courts are orderly and dignified, showing there is nothing intrinsic in the nature of criminal trials which makes disorder and lack of dignity unavoidable.