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Show ANOTHER REFORM. The American Bar association at its last meeting meet-ing a year ago appointed a committee to draft proposed pro-posed laws which would prevent unnecessary cost and delay in litigation, and would more surely tend to the administration of substantial justice than the present system, if they could find such defects as would permit of revision. The session of the association this year will be held in Seattle from August 25 to 28, and the committee appointed ap-pointed last year will submit its reports at that time Monday morning last a brief summary of the report was sentout to the newspapers from New -York. The committee report opens with a statement that the evil which seems most serious to the committee I is the disposition in some jurisdictions for the court 1 to dispose of appeals and wrrits of error on purely technical grounds, while the merits of the case may be entirely disregarded and justice defeated. In the judgment of the committee, and which judgment judg-ment will be very generally agreed to by the layman, lay-man, the rule in civil and criminal procedure on appeals should be that decisions should not be based on reversible errors committed by the court below, but strictly upon the merits of the case before the court. The many decisions which have been handed down by courts of appeals on . purely technical grounds have tended more than anything else to bring the administration of justice and the courts into disrepute. The judicial minds of the judges have undoubtedly interpreted the laws and e. ,,,., (t procedure as they were written, making ir ;,u -,, but impossible thing to try a case in which yers are engaged without in some innocent the trial judge commit some breach whi.-h v.-, .u;,i j considered reversible error by the court of .,..jlf ? The recent decision of the Standard Oil rc versing the trial court, was made upon i, , grounds, if we mistake not. In this, as in ..:-'i),.r ,j cisions of the court at Chicago and e- -,, ;;,.r,, has been the opinion of laymen that the tice were defeated through techr.icalifi.-s were not intended by the law makers t.. n ;,!;,,,,, in the codes. The committee further says that t:.-- r, .,rTT,. which it recommends are not new or ;.nr ;..,) v,., have been tried in England to the satisf;,.-;,.., r-the r-the bar and litigants. Further, the comitv. n,. serts that the reform in the rrimina! ; ,;Ur which it recommends is in substantial ,;;",, ;..,;. of the common law, and that the abus-s .!, i,. is sought to remedy have never existed in i. !,!nr j If the American Bar association t-,r. Lmv.. ;f, recommendations written into the procedure ,f a;; the courts of the country authorized t., V.T ar peals, the endless litigation turning ;i ,.rr . of. the trial court and not in any j.uy ..tT.-.-:,,r :y merits of the case before it will no Uoul'- l,e (.,,,,., Technicalities have no place before th-- b;,r i f ju. tice. If the judgment of the jury in the trial o.,-lr is that a crime has been committed and fim' fia f guilt has been fastened on the man b fi.ro thr. f,a. f no technical error should preclude the f;ir -r.ii-' rf I punishment on the offender as justice rr.: ;hn lar I demand. S |