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5 Trial Judges J. 1 (1966)

handle is hein.journals/judgej5 and id is 1 raw text is: JANUARY, 1966 Vol. 5. No. 1 nfr ato Ex ha g of th 0Iaio a Conference o S t e Tra Judgs Pattern Instructions Perfected By JUSTICE BERNARD S. MEYER* Supreme Court, Mineola, New York In the last few years the movement begun some thirty years ago in California by Judge William J. Palmer has butgeoned. Pattern juiy tnstimctions waw exist in at least fifteen states and are in course of prep- aration in about fifteen more. This article sketches the process by which New York Pattern Jury Instructions-Civil was prepared. The work was undertaken by a committee of the Association of Supreme Court Justices consisting of the writer as Chairman, and Justices Frederic T. Henry, G. Robert Witmer, William B. Law- Sudse Se-a, S. Me,, less and M. Henry Martuscello. The Judicial Conference provided the services of Professor Peter W. Thornton of Brooklyn Law School as Reporter and also underwrote the travel expenses of Committee members to monthly meetings. Though the Committee was limited in size, care was taken to see that its work was reviewed by a number of others. Coordinating committees of United States District Judges, County Court Judges, Surrogates Court Judges and New York City Civil Court judges were established and charges that had been tentatively approved by the parent committee were sent to them for review. The process produced some unexpected bonuses, one being the federal annotation which appears at the end of the comment to a number of charges in order to point up variances of federal from state laws. The State Reporter also reviewed the Committee's work for aptness and correctness of citation, and made valuable sugges- tions on editorial content. Underlying the work was the concept that the jury should be told in everyday language what they were called up to decide and the steps to be followed in ar- riving at a verdict, and that the judge should be pro- vided, to the fullest extent possible, with answers to the practical problems most often arising in the type of case dealt with by the charge. To this end each bl-ack letter charge is followed by a comment in regular type. (Continued on page 20) * Member of Executive Committee, National Conference of State Trial Judges. RESPONSIBILITY IN SENTENCING By JUDGE HORACE W. GILMORE* Circuit Court, Detroit Even thomgh the cause and cuve 4 crme is a tela- tively recent concern of our nation, it is one of the most important, and the criminal sentence is pivotal in this entire field. There is no question but that in- formed and intelligent criminal sentencing is one of the proven tools for the rehabilitation of the criminal offender. It should be recalled that 94 percent of all persons sentenced to prison eventually come out and resume life in normal society. For the vast majority of those who were in difficulty with the law there is real hope of rehabilitation. What can we do about dis- parity of sentences at the trial court level? All of us know this is one of our most difficult prob- lems and one that causes the greatest difficulty in terms of reha- bilitation. The United States Dis- trict Court of the Eastern District of Michigan has solved the prob- Judge Horace W. Gilmore lem of disproportionate sentencing through the use of a sentencing council. The council works with the eight judges of that court in this way: The judges meet in panels of three, each of the judges having been supplied with the probation report five days before the meeting. In addition, each judge is given a sentencing coun- cil study sheet which provides for the judge a distillation of the pertinent facts involved. One judge will call his first case, stating the name of the offender and give a brief statement of the offense. He will then state to his brother judges the factors which he believes to be controlling and make a recom- mendation. Each of the other two judges will in turn do the same thing vith each case and state his yeccm- mended sentence. (Continued on page 17) *Cordensed from talk at 1965 Annuol Meeting, Natioiial Conference of State Trial Judges. Trial Judges'Journal

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