Note 27 — FOOTNOTES:

This is a vast improvement over the conditions which existed in this regard six or seven years ago, when defendants in prison could count themselves fortunate if tried within three weeks, or, if on bail, within a year. It was by no means unusual to have cases appear upon the calendars from three to five years old, the backs of the indictments being covered with the names of assistants long since departed from official life. The writer once tried a case that had appeared on the calendar TWENTY-EIGHT times, and cases which had appeared there from ten to twenty times were the rule, not the exception. In the days when the present district attorney was a deputy, indictments were so carelessly found and treated that in order to clear the calendars bushel baskets of them would be brought into court and dismissed "on the recommendation" of the district attorney. A house-cleaning process of this sort would ordinarily occur just before it became necessary to make an official report on the number of cases "disposed of." To-day there are very few indictments not tried within the year, and almost any defendant who wants one can get a speedy trial, such delays as arise being generally caused by the defendant himself. Of course during the summer months when but two courts are open, and the judges sit from only ten-thirty to one o'clock, action is somewhat less speedy, and as homicide cases usually require more time for trial than others, and are tried seriatim in order of age, the defendants may have to wait a little longer than in cases of less gravity. Even in such cases defendants generally have to be "forced to trial" against their will.