Law: Country Judges

Since Mrs. O’Leary’s apocryphal cow kicked over the lantern which started the Great Fire of 1871, Cook County has relied more & more upon out-of-town judges to sit in Chicago courts because of crowded court calendars. Periodic attempts have been made to stop the practice, but, as with all reform in Chicago, with scant success. The late Anton Joseph (“Tony”) Cermak said that there was enough unemployment among local judges without importing out-of-town municipal justices, and State’s Attorneys ruled the method of paying visiting judges was illegal. Last week for the first time a City Corporation Counsel cracked down on the country judges when 36-year-old Barnet Hodes warned Sheriff John Toman that he faced a possible $10,000 fine if he continued to pay the country judges out of marriage license funds.

That Chicago’s inferior courts are overcrowded there is no question. In the Circuit and Superior Courts (for all intents & purposes identical), 22,500 cases are pending. Not since 1915 has there been an increase in the number of judges (48), although Illinois law stipulates one judge for each 50,000 inhabitants and Cook County’s population has increased more than 1,000,000. Reapportionment, whether it be Congressional or judicial, is feared like the Devil among downstate Illinois politicians.

At the start of last week there were 15 country judges sitting on Chicago benches for $20 per day plus expenses, more than most of them make at home. Last year 27 out-of-town judges collected $37,000 from the marriage license bureau in addition to their own salaries. So popular have Chicago jobs become that one judge put up this sign in his downstate office: “Out of City — In Friday nights.” Last month the Chicago Association of Commerce cried for action on court delays, suggesting that too many regular judges were absent too often. Favorite vacation spots of Chicago judges and politicians : French Lick, Ind. (run-of-the-mill political conclaves); Hot Springs, Ark. (special deals); Florida, California, Hawaii (relaxation).

Corporation Counsel Hodes’ chief complaint against the country judges is the way they handle personal injury and damage suits against the city. Rather than hand down a directed verdict against a plaintiff who asks $40,000 for stumbling on “defective pavement,” Lawyer Hodes says, the case would be sent to a jury. Occasion for action last week was the allowance by Judge John T. Cummings of Kewanee (pop. 17,093) of a $5,000 claim against the city in favor of School boy Robert Strappelli, 15, who slipped on ice and had three toes cut off by a trolley.

Six visiting judges decided not to sit in Superior Court until the row was settled. Court calendars were shuffled to take personal injury suits against the city away from country judges. Because Corporation Counsel Hodes had used the Strappelli case as an example while a motion to overrule the verdict was still pending, lawyers for the schoolboy announced that they would ask the court to declare him in contempt of court for a deliberate attempt to influence and intimidate justice. But this did not ruffle short, swart Barnet Hodes.

A Polish Jew who arrived in the U. S. as a boy, Barnet Hodes has made the corporation counsel’s office the city’s law office in fact as well as in name. Since 1933 six separate law offices representing the city have been combined, sorely needed records kept where records never existed before. Says the Illinois Bar Journal of busy Mr. Hodes’ activities:”Probably nothing more dramatic in the field of public law has taken place in recent years than this ‘renovation.’ ” Says Barnet Hodes: “Sure, I’m a politician. I’m here because I’m one, but I’ve got to produce.”