V. CONCLUSION Throughout its long history, the office of the parajudge has changed very little. The locus of employment of the parajudge has altered from appellate courts to trial courts, but his purpose is the same: to assist the court in dealing with its caseload. He has become a fixture in many court systems, one with whom some courts have become uncomfortable. Several states have re-evaluated the position of the parajudge and a few have abandoned his use in some or all of the state's courts. Abandoning the use of subordinate judicial officers and replacing them with judges, aside from the issue of the quality of justice, is a luxury many jurisdictions simply cannot afford in view of both economics and rising caseloads. It is doubtful, for example, that the federal courts will call for the repeal of the Magistrates Act, because of the great assistance these officers have provided to U.S. District Court judges. In the states, too, the parajudges has been of immeasurable help to many courts. After analyzing the use of these officers in the various states, it becomes apparent that they are most frequently and probably the most effectively used in trial courts where they are assigned to hear cases in one specific area. Because the parajudges are responsible for probate, or traffic, or domestic relations, or small claims, or juvenile cases, they are able to develop an area of expertise in which the judges trust their performance. As a result, the judges are free to deal with the more complicated civil cases and the criminal caseload, which was the primary reason for the employment of these subordinate judicial officers. Another effective use of parajudges is in counties without a resident judge, where a commissioner can be responsible for actions that must be undertaken immediately, e.g., the custody or detention of delinquent and dependent children. (See Appendix: Washington and Wyoming.) There are many approaches a state can take with regard to parajudicial personnel. One, of course, is to reject their use entirely. Another is to restrict or to modify their activities. Other courts might profit by expanding the authority of their parajudges. Each court must make its own decision in this regard based upon its own unique circumstances and procedures. 99-158-78-32 [From the Washington Post, Apr. 16, 1977] WIDER ROLE FOR U.S. MAGISTRATES SOUGHT TO CUT COURT BACKLOG (By John M. Goshko) The Carter administration plans to ask Congress for legislation aimed at reducing the number of lawsuits piled up in the U.S. District Courts by giving federal magistrates vastly expanded powers to decide civil and criminal cases. Although the Justice Department contends the plan to shift up to 16,000 cases a year from judges to magistrates would greatly improve the public's ability to get cases into court and have them decided quickly, it has triggered an emotional and growing controversy. Opponents of the proposal charge that it would relegate thousands of the poor and elderly to a system of "second-class justice" where they would be given inferior-quality hearings and have their rights of appeal made more difficult. Adding an ironic note to the controversy are the questions it raises about the administration's populist image. When Griffin B. Bell became Attorney General on Jan. 26, the long-closed main doors of the Justice Department building were unlocked to symbolize the administration's desire to give the average American greater access to the legal system. Yet what is tentatively planned as the administration's first proposal to Congress for legislation in the legal field has triggered charges of class discrimination. As one department official concedes, "We're being accused of trying to push the little guy out so the big fat-cat litigants like the major corporations can have the courts to themselves." Underlying the dispute is increasing concern among judges and lawyers about the growing backlog of unresolved cases in the federal courts. The number of new cases filed in the U.S. District Courts-the trial level of the federal court system-has been running at the rate of 160,000 a year. The latest figures compiled by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts show that from July through September, 1976, 32,192 civil cases were filed in the District Courts. That brought the number of unresolved civil cases to 145,369, which meant a backlog of 365 pending cases for each of the 398 authorized District Court judgeships. To deal with this problem, the Justice Department wants Congress to authorize greater use of the more than 400 magistrates who are already part of the federal court system. The magistrates, many of whom serve only part time, are lawyers appointed by the district judges to assist them with such chores as holding preliminary hearings for persons charged with a federal crime or conducting fact-finding hearings in cases before they go to trial. A bill drafted by the Justice Department and now being reviewed at the White House would empower the magistrates to decide several categories of cases. In the criminal area, that would include certain offenses where the penalities do not exceed a year's imprisonment and where the defendant is willing to waive his right to a jury trial. The proposed law also would allow magistrates to decide any civil cases regardless of their monetary size, provided that all parties involved in the case agree to such handling. Finally, the law would make mandatory the transfer to the jurisdiction of the magistrates certain civil suits-primarily claims under the Social Security Act and federal laws governing compensation in black-lung cases-that now come under the District Courts. The Justice Department estimates that these measures will reduce the current District Court caseload by 6 to 10 per cent, or as many as 16,000 cases. Of that, approximately 12,000 would be Social Security and blacklung suits. The plan has come under heavy criticism from such poverty law organizations as the Legal Service Corps., the government-funded but legally independent manager of federal poverty law programs. The poverty law groups contend that too many federal magistrates owe their positions to political patronage and cronyism and consequently have legal qualifications that range from mediocre to poor. They also object to a provision in the bill that would allow appeals from a magistrate's decision to the District Court but restrict the right to take a case further up into the chain of federal appellate courts. That, the critics charge, places an undue burden on the people who are normally litigants in Social Security and black-lung cases. It would, they say, impose an additional layer of courts on people of limited financial means and make more difficult, time-consuming and costly their ability to pursue an appeal. Some public-interest lawyers contend that the proposal is indicative of what they regard as an "elitist" attitude within the Justice Department that the priority attention of the federal courts should be given to complicated commercial and antitrust cases rather than small claims. The charge is denied by Daniel J. Meador, a former law professor from the University of Virginia who was named by Bell to the newly created post of assistant attorney general for improvements in the administration of jusice. Meador directed the research and drafting for the proposed magistrates bill. The aim, he said in an interview, "is not to deny justice but to make justice more accessible, especially to the less-advantage, by finding alternatives to what is now a long and costly wait in line to get before a judge." "What we're trying to do is give people with disputes a fair and expeditious way to get them settled," he said. "You're not doing anybody a favor to let them line up for a year or more under the illusion that they're going to get better justice because they are before someone who's called a judge rather than a magistrate." "The present reality," Meador contended, is that the great majority of Social Security and black-lung cases already are settled by magistrates. "The cases come flowing in, and the judge, as a matter of routine, refers it to a magistrate for fact finding,” he said .“Then, the magistrate makes a proposed judgment for the judge's signature which is invariably accepted."” Meador argued that the bill safeguards a litigant's rights by guaranteeing him an automatic appeal to the district judge. And, he noted, despite restrictions the litigant could still go higher-theoretically all the way to the Supreme Court-if he can convince the appellate courts that there is merit to his arguments. He conceded that "the question of uneven quality and qualifications among magistrates is a matter of concern." But, he added, while the bill leaves the power to appoint magistrates to the District Courts, it says that appointments should be "subject to such procedures and standards" as the Judicial Conference of the federal courts may prescribe. |