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Show FACT BOOK-1972 36 great bulk of LEAA funds were directed to police programs, and large part of that for "hardware". a few states, the trial courts, and the judges of those courts, must handle both civil and criminal cases. As the volume of criminal cases increases, more judges must be assigned to criminal • In all but a trials, and less judicial manpower is available for civil cases. Thus, increased police efficiency in apprehending law violators, while com mendable, necessarily and inevitably reduces the capability of a trial court to avoid delays in the trial of civil cases. This "fact of life" in judicial administration has been wholly ignored by the Nixon Administration. LEAA has issued regulations which provide that it will not support complete costs of a combined criminal! civil court improvement program unless at least 60 per cent of the project is devoted to the criminal jurisdiction of the court. The single-minded emphasis of the Nixon Administration upon "law and order" and "law enforcement" has operated to aggravate the delays in the civil courts. The Nixon Administration has failed • to perceive the injustice of a system which can try a criminal case within 60 days of indictment but is incapable of adjudicating civil disputes between law abiding citizens in less than three years. Important solve Federal jur!Sd1::: • our bills have been introduced court Senator Judiciary (S 1876) problems. Quentin N. Burdick Subcommittee on by Democratic Senators to (D N.D.), Chairman of the Senate Judicial Machinery, has introduced a bill amend Title 28 of the U.S. code which substantially jurisdiction of federal courts. Chief Judge Clement S. Haynsworth of the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has noted that there is a great need to draw clearer lines between federal and state court jurisdiction, since the federal courts spend a substantial amount of time trying to determine that threshhold question in most to delineates the cases. • ing One of the sections of this bill would bar suit in the federal district courts of his a plaintiff from bring state on the basis of diversity just because the defendant is from outside his state. Professor Richard H. Feld of Harvard Law School thinks this pro a vision could trim diversity DiJ:ect grants Former Senator cases own in the federal courts by almost half. Joseph Tydings (D Md.) and other Senators introduced the National Court Assistance Act (S 3275) in the 91st Congress. This bill would deal directly with the financial crisis of • |
