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16 Panel 1 (1938)

handle is hein.journals/panelmbu16 and id is 1 raw text is: To increase the effectiveness of the Grand Jury System Mz PANEL A Publication Devoted to the Exchange of Views of Public Officials and Citizens in the Effort to Prevent Crime and Secure the True Administration of Justice PUBLISHED BY THE GRAND JURY ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK COUNTY The contributions and letters in The Panel are either credited to their authors or signed with the names or initials of their writers and the Editor assumes no responsibility for the opinions contained therein beyond expressing the views that the subjects they treat of are worthy of the attention of Grand Jurors. VOL. 16 JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1938 NO. 1 City Affairs Committee Lends Aid Wants Political Leaders Held Responsible to the Public The City Affairs Committee has been very much interested in a series of articles which have appeared in THE PANEL from time to time deal- ing with the 'invisible government' .and the need for the regulation of political bosses, says a letter re- ceived by the Editor of THE PANEL. The importance of this matter was dramatically illustrated by the series of addresses made by the Hon. Thomas E. Dewey, during his cam- paign for District Attorney of New York County, in which he disclosed the alliance between certain political leaders and racketeers and in which be so bravely named names and sup- plied evidence substantiating those statements. The City Affairs Committee, at that time, issued a public statement in which it said that those disclos- ures made by Mr. Dewey may have surprised many citizens but they did not come as a surprise either to the Grand Jury Association of New York County or to civic organiza- tions such as ours, which have for years been fighting political corrup- tion, and which have known, though they did not have the mass of evi- dence which Mr. Dewey was able to supply, that this unholy alliance existed between certain leaders of Tammany Hall and the underworld. The disclosures made by Mr. Dewey, in our opinion, are emphatic confirmation of the need for con- structive and fundamental change which is required in our political sys- tem so that the leaders, great and small, of political parties, shall be (Continued on page 7) CongratulatesGrand Jurors of NewYorkCounty Statement by District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey Two and a half years of intimate association with the Grand Jurors of New York County have left with me an indelible conviction that the community is to be congratulated on the group of men it has had the good fortune to command for Grand Jury service. The Grand Jury is the potential defendant's first contact with the judgment of his peers. No small measure of the assurance of swift and true justice is to be credited to the rare discre- tion of Grand Jurors. They are the sword of the community in aid of prosecution, the shield of the weak and the wrongfully accused, and the eyes of all citizens in making certain that prosecu- tion shall be swift, vigorous and incorruptible. I have found that the members of the Grand Juries keenly appreciate the problems of the new District Attorney's office and cooperate heartily Thomas E. Dewey in our suggestions to make the processes of the law responsive to the requirements of progress in the administration of criminal justice. With the vigilant and continued help of the Grand Jurors we will hope to raise the standard of criminal justice to the point where it will command the respect and confidence of the whole community. Bill for Providing Uniform Method to Select Trial and Grand Jurors To be introduced in the 1938 New York State Legislature By WILLIAM H. WEST, JR. Chairman, Lawyers' Committee The purpose of this article is to describe briefly a proposed bill pro- viding for a uniform method of se- lecting, drawing and empanelling of trial and grand jurors in this State. This whole subject has been mooted since the time of the Gov- ernor's Conference on Crime in Albany on October 1, 1935, when a brief was submitted by the Grand Jury Association of New York County. The Bill refers particularly to a uniform system for the selection of grand jurors. About two years ago the Lawyers' Committee of the Asso- ciation of Grand Jurors of New York County first began work on the draft of a statute providing for a uniform method of selection. That committee now has perfected a draft which will be submitted to your Board of Directors for approval, and upon which some action may have been taken by the time this article appears in print. - ' r. Due to the familiarity of many PANEL readers with this general subject and the problems involved, this article will not urge at great length the desirability of such an act. A few words of introduction may be in order, however, for the benefit of those readers who may be unfamiliar with the purpose of the proposed bill. The main purpose of the bill is to remove the selection of jurors and the drawing of panels from the hands of locally-elected political offi- cers, who may or may not be persons of high integrity and conscientious in performance of duty, and to place the direct responsibility for the selec- tion and drawing of jurors upon the justices of the Appellate Division. These justices would appoint a Com- missioner of Jurors for each county within the Judicial Department, or designate some other county officer to fulfill the functions of a Commis- (Continued on page 6) Court House Problems Analyzed Architect Reveals Plan for Meeting Needs of All Groups By HARVEY WILEY CORBETT Architect As early as 1909 a Grand Jury under Thomas W. Slocum as fore- man handed up the original present- ment condemning the old Court House. Over three years ago Mayor La Guardia and Borough President Levy started definite steps in the direction of getting a new Court House and Jail. They were aided and abetted in a very effective way by the Judges of General Sessions, Special Sessions, the Magistrates and the. Grand TJnry Association. All of which effort resulted in securing the necessary furds and authorizing the architects, Harvey Wiley Corbett and Charles B. Meyers, to draw pre- liminary plans. Approval of these preliminary plans by all of the au- thorities resulted in the final con- tract now in force. Any Court House problem divides itself into two major categories:- 1st-the spatial needs, types of rooms which are required and the system of horizontal and vertical cir- culation needed to provide adequate and easy access to these spaces. 2nd-the human problems of properly segregating the various kinds of people who have business in a Criminal Courts Building. There are six groups of people to provide for, namely: Judges, Juries, Attorneys, Prosecutors and Defence Witnesses, Prisoners and the gen- eral public. Dealing with the spatial needs, a Court House is, of necessity, a com- plicated undertaking, because it in- (Continued on page 6)

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