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Show JEW LAVV FAVORED J Increase in Supreme Coui-t Membership Is Given j Indorsement. i IS OPPOSED BY FEW Former Justice Shows the Amount of Work Done by Utah Judges. At a meetiug of the Utah States Bar association held yesterday in tho federal fed-eral building the bill to increase the justices of the supreme court bench from threo to fi?e receivod a substantial substan-tial indorsement, but fow members voicing their disapproval of tho measure, meas-ure, which at that time had not be.ei submitted to or sigued by Governor Bamberger. About a hundred lawyers attended ' the meeting, which was presided over by William D. Riter, president of the association. Mr. Riter made the opening open-ing address, stating that the meeting was called for the purpose of obtaining the sentiment of the legal fraternity as to the merits of the bill. Ho stated that when the matter was first, brought to his attention by certain lawyers who were interested in having the "member-shin "member-shin of t ho supreme court increased a call was made upon Governor Bamberger Bamber-ger by himself and several lawyers, members of the senate and house. He said that the governor asked tor statistics statis-tics showing the amount of work done by the Ctah supreme court as compared with other states in the west, and also what the. ratio of population was in the various western states to each judge. Decides to Call Meeting. "I secured the statistics," stated U. Riter, "and received a letter from Gov-ernor Gov-ernor Bamberger that he would be glad to have the advice of the bar association associa-tion in the matter. I called a meeting of the executive committee of the bar association, which was attended bv one of the Democratic, leaders of tho house, and took up the advisability of taking action, saying that T felt it'was useless to call a meeting of the association if there was any pronounced opposition in the legislature to the passage of tho bill. The leader of whom I speak said tho bill would uot pass the committee, much less the house, and so the executive committee com-mittee thought it unnecessary, in view of this sentiment, to do anything in the matter. .Almost in the twinkling of an eye a bill had passed both branches of the legislature and I decided to calli. meeting of the association to complvv with the wishes of Governor Bamberger w. that he be accorded the advice and as- sietance of the bar association, calling the meeting in the shortest possible time, so he would know the sentiments of the body before he took any aetioiujlr on the bill." 7 Favored by Justices. i Mr. Riter stated that he had Invited all tho members of the supreme court to be present to express their views, but that, while he was not at liberty to mention any names, it had developed that one member of that body thought it wholly unnecessary to increase Tho membership, while the others were just as strongly in favor of it, tho third member stating that he bad not been long enough in office to give an opinion as to the necessity of the increase. None of the judges was present to express his views. Attorney P. L. Williams asked for statistics showing the amount of work done by tho supreme court as compared with the various western states and the population of each state and ratio of population per judge. President Riter read to the meeting the statistics furnished fur-nished to Governor Bamberger, showing that In the western states having a larger population than Utah the number num-ber of opinions handed down by each judge was much greater in"jroportion than the opinions handed down iu Utah, the inference being drawn that the judges in other state's accomplished their work more rapidly. In Nevada, Wv0-ming Wv0-ming and Arizona, where the population popula-tion is less than in Utah, the statistics showed that naturally the litigation was less and the work jess than that performed per-formed by the Utah judges. When asked by Mr. Williams for the amount of time Utah supreme court judges devoted de-voted to the board of pardons, President Presi-dent Riter replied that tie had no information, in-formation, but that, former Chief Justice Jus-tice Straup, who was present and had just terminated a long term ou the supreme bench, could speak adviscdlv on that subject. Says Work Is Great. r Judge Straup informed the members that lie was in favor ot the bill. He gave the number of cases handled in the course of each year. Bv eliminating eliminat-ing Sundavs and holidays, he said, and the time devoted by the supreme conrt judges to the board of pardons, there was surprisingly little time left for the consideration of cases. "As it is now," stated Judge Straup, "when cases arc assigned to different judges we get the opinion of one judge on those particular cases assigned him, other judges not being be-ing able to go into the matters on account ac-count of the considerable work thev have ou their own accounts." Attorney Walter P. Kirksev spoke in favor of tho legislation, stating that in his opinion tho association ought to indorse to the governor1 the nominees for these vacancies. This was ruled out of order by President Kiter. who ruled Mr. Kirkse'y had departed from the purpose pur-pose of tho meeting, which was solelv for the purpose of ascertaininc if the lawyers viewed the bill favorably. Others to address the meeting were C. S. Varian, Frank K. Xebckor, George M. Sullivan and Judge I.e Grand Young, all of whom expressed themselves as heartily in favor of the proposed increase. in-crease. The motion to indiirse the measure was then put and carried. |