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5 Panel 1 (1927)

handle is hein.journals/panelmbu5 and id is 1 raw text is: Th

PANEL

MONTHLY BULLETIN OF THE
ASSOCIATION OF GRAND JURORS, NEW YORK COUNTY
VOL. S                    JANUARY, 1927                   NO. 1

AB INITIO
The beginning of the New Year is the
proper time to start things moving so that
by its end, if during the interim a cumula-
tive force has been continuously applied to
them, they will have gone some distance.
A great opportunity is being presented by
the Association of Grand Jurors to the Grand
Jurors of New York County, a majority of
whom are now its members, who have been
long suffering patiently under an outworn,
cumbersome and inefficient system of pro-
cedure which, a relic of the distant past, they
have not been able to slough off on account
of their statutory limitations.
We have studied the Grand Jury system in
effect in other States and considered the rec-
ommendations for improvements, made by
the National Crime Commission and the
Crime Commission of this and other States,
and in accordance with them and the sugges-
tions of some of our Judges and our District
Attorney we are preparing to improve our
procedure here so that it will meet efficiently
the increasing requirements of the growing
cosmopolitan population of the County.
So let us see where we stand and then
start at the beginning.
The Board for the Selection of Grand
Jurors is composed of the Presiding Justice
of the Appellate Division of the Supreme
Court, First Department, the Mayor of the
City of New York, who is elected by its
citizens-these two are continued as mem-
bers of the Board as long as they hold their
respective positions on the Bench and as head
of the City Government-an Associate Jus-
tice of the aforesaid Appellate Division, des-
ignated each year by the resident members of
that Division, and two Judges of the Court
of General Sessions, designated each year by
that Court. The members of the Supreme
Court are appointed by the Governor, those
of the General Sessions Court are elected
by the people of the County. The Pre-
siding Justice is the Chairman. Three mem-
bers constitute a quorum. The Commis-
sioner of Jurors, who is not a member of
the Board, is appointed by it and acts as its
clerk while it functions from the last Monday
in November for fifteen days. His other
duties, consisting of the monthly drawing
of Petit and Grand Jurors and keeping in-
formed regarding them, are continuous
throughout the year. The Board is responsi-
ble to nobody.
Early in the summer we began our efforts
to have this Board increase both the number

1927
GREETING
to all Grand Jurors,
our other members
and readers
Program of Major
Projects for the Year
1-Modernize our Grand Jury Sys-
tem.
2-Install microphones and amplifiers
in Grand Jury rooms.
3-Start building new Classification
Center and Industrial plant on
Riker Island and Removal of
Prisons from Welfare and Hart
Islands.
4-Improve conditions in District
Prisons.
5-Extend Jefferson Market Prison.
6-Reduce Bail Bond abuses.
7-Amplify Central Bureau of Rec-
ords.
8-Have Courts report dispositions
of cases to Police daily.
9-Curb traffic in Stolen Property.
10-Lessen the Crooked Lawyer evil
in courts and about prisons and
police stations.
To carry out this program we need the
support of the full Grand Jury Panel, both
sentimentally and financially. We need a
permanent headquarters, a paid Secretary,
a Research expert, a typewriter and file
clerk. This will entail an annual budget of
$10,000. It remains to be seen if the Grand
Jurors of New York County are to remain
longer supine to the dictatorship of the
Court, District Attorney and criminal law-
yer, or if they shall assume the task of re-
establishing the Grand Jury as it originally
was and still should be The Grand Inquisi-
torial Body of the County.
and quality of the Grand Jurors. The PANEL
carried references to those efforts in each
subsequent issue. We pointed out to the
Clerk and to the Board, either in person or
in writing, that owing to the small number
of 1370 Grand Jurors on the Grand Jury
Panel several had had to serve twice in the
year. Also that oftentimes, especially during
the summer when the exodus of people from

the City on vacations is great, Sitting Panels
are undermanned causing great inconvenience
to their members, the Court and the District
Attorney. We requested an increase up to
1500, the limit authorized by the present law.
As requested by the Commissioner of
Jurors we submitted to him a list of over 300
names of prominent citizens for consideration
by the Board.
In accordance with the law the Board got
together a quorum and met on November
29th and again on December 9th, and having
devoted itself to passing upon the list of
names to compose the Panel of Grand
Jurors for the year 1927 presented to it by
its clerk, the Commissioner of Jurors, and
recognizing fealty to nobody, it adjourned
sine die after making the following state-
ment addressed to no one.
We, the undersigned, members of the Board
for the Selection of Grand Jurors for the year
nineteen hundred and twenty-seven, have selected
from the list presented by the Commissioner of
Jurors of persons qualified to serve as Jurors in
the County of New York, the following list of
Thirteen hundred and ninety-five persons to serve
as Grand Jurors for the different terms of the
Supreme Court for the trial of criminal actions
and of the Court of General Sessions of the County
of New York to be held in and for the County of
New York, until the next list shall be prepared.
(Signed) JOHN PRocToR CLARKE
Pres. Jus. App. Div. Supr. Ct., Chnn.
( ~ ) Jon V. McAvoY
Associate Justice, App. Div. Supr. Ct.
(  ) Joan F. MCINTYRE
Judge of the Court of General Sessions
Judge of the Court of General Sessions
The Mayor of the City of New York
December 14, 1926
The net result of their arduous labors is
the addition of just 25 names (1395 - 1370 =
25) to the old list.
Parturiuit montes, nascitur rediculus mius.
An examination of the list shows a number
of persons on it who are exempt from jury
duty under the law, together with others
prominent in the social, financial and polit-
ical worlds, whose records of service in the
past are farcical, while still others who have
served faithfully in the past have been
dropped.
0 tempora! 0 mores!
Since the Board adjourned the Presiding
Justice has been retired from the Bench on
account of old age and so went off the Board
automatically. The Board as a whole then
went into respectable and innocuous desue-
tude.
Requiescat in pace.

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