If the rule were insisted upon in this district, I would feel compelled to dismiss the cases for want of prosecution. This method of handling cases which otherwise would be nolled, I am assured by the clerk, accounts for many of the criminal jury trials in the eastern district shown in the Attorney General's report. Again, I understand that since 1927 it has been the practice in the eastern district of Kentucky to allow defendants to file written pleas of guilty on their examining trials before the commissioner, and where these defendants do not appear at the next term of the district court, a jury is impaneled in their cases, if they are misdemeanor cases, a plea of guilty read to the jury, and the jury instructed to find the defendant guilty. This accounts for a great many more of the jury trials in criminal cases reported in the eastern district. We have no such practice in the western district. In misdemeanor cases we do, in the western district, follow the State practice of trying a defendant in his absence, if he is on bond, but such a trial is a real trial. The Government is required to prove its case with as much particularity as if the defendant were present, actually contesting the case. I am assured by the judge and the clerk in the eastern district that of the 1,219 jury trials in criminal cases shown by the attorney General's report to have been had in the eastern district for the year ending June 30, 1929, considerably less than one-half of them were actually trials in the true sense of the word. On the other hand, every single jury trial, reported as having taken place in the western district was a trial, in the sense that lawyers usually understand that word. Again, if you will examine the reports of the Attorney General prior to 1927, before the present method of handling nolled cases and cases of pleas of guilty was adopted by the eastern district, you will find that there was no great discrepancy between the actual number of jury trials in the eastern district and in the western district. Again, an examination of the Attorney General's reports will show that we have in the western district very many more bankruptcy cases than are had in the eastern district, and, while I am not certain of this, I understand it to be true that the various referees in the eastern district fix the fees of the attorneys for the trustee, receiver, petitioning creditors, and bankrupt, without bothering the court. I have felt it necessary in the western district to follow a different rule, and that is, that no attorney's fee in excess of $100 can be allowed by the referee. Notice of the application for such fees must be filed with the referee. He calls a meeting of the creditors to consider the application, receives any objections and hears any proof with reference thereto, and then the whole matter is certified to me, with such parts of the bankruptcy record as I may need to intelligently pass on the question of the proper fee to be allowed. You can readily see that this entails upon the judge a vast amount of work, which I understand the judge of the eastern district is free from. I do not want in any way to minimize the amount of work that Judge Cochran is doing. I think he can dispose of as much business as any judge I have ever known. Neither do I want the impression to be created by those who favor the third district that I have an easy job. I think any lawyer who practices in my district will tell you that it has never been my disposition to shirk work nor to postpone it. A great many Louisville lawyers practice both in the eastern and the western district, and in recent years I am confident they will tell you that the civil litigation in the western district has, as a general thing, been more varied and more difficult, from a judge's viewpoint, than has been that in the eastern district. While the number of such cases has not been great, we have enough admiralty cases in the western district to place a considerable burden of work upon the judge. I doubt if they ever have admiralty cases in the eastern district. Certainly, the Attorney General's reports for the past four years show no such cases. Again, patent litigation has commenced to be quite an important item of the judge's work in the western district. I know that such litigation is rare in the eastern district. As heretofore stated, practically every income-tax suit brought in Kentucky is brought in my district, and all of them entail much labor and study. Prior to the enactment of the Kentucky workmen's compensation act, the eastern district had a great number of personal injury and other negligence cases, on account of the great number of mines in that section of Kentucky. That litigation has practically all disappeared, as almost without exception the mining operations are conducted under the provisions of the workmen's compensation act. Until recently, probably the most important branch of civil litigation in the eastern district was that involving land titles. Any well-informed lawyer of eastern Kentucky, however, knows that practically all land titles have been settled and very little litigation of that character now finds its way into the Federal court. Some idea of the importance and the character of litigation in the western district may be gained from an examination of the reported cases tried in the western district in the last five years, and of course you understand, many of the cases tried are not reported, that being a matter of discretion with the judge. As a fair sample of our litigation, I refer you to the following cases: In re Green River Jockey Club (5 Fed. (2d) 259). Kentucky Tobacco Products Co. v. Lucas, collector (5 Fed. (2d) 723). Fidelity & Columbia Trust Co. v. Lucas, collector (7 Fed. (2d) 146). Standard Oil Co. of Kentucky v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co. (13 Fed. (2d) 633). Kentucky Jockey Club v. Lucas, collector (14 Fed. (2d) 539). United States v. Board et al. (14 Fed. (2d) 459). Owensboro Ditcher & Grader Co. v. Lucas, collector (18 Fed. (2d) 798). Eskimo Pie Corporation v. National Ice Cream Co. (20 Fed. (2d) 1003). Alexander v. Lucas, collector (21 Fed. (2d) 68). Thos. E. Basham Co. v. Lucas, collector (21 Fed. (2d) 550). United States v. Royal Indemnity Co. (21 Fed. (2d) 65). United States v. Lam (26 Fed. (2d) 830). United States v. Liberty Insurance Bank (26 Fed. (2d) 493). Kister Oil Development Corporation v. Young (27 Fed. (2d) 433). Southern Oil & Tar Co. v. Great Lakes Ins. Co. (30 Fed. (2d) 169). In re Gish (32 Fed. (2d) 322). Chess & Wymond Co. v. Lucas, collector (33 Fed. 793). Paul Jones & Co. v. Lucas, collector (33 Fed. (2d) 907). I might add that most of the three-judge cases under section 266 of the Judicial Code originate in the eastern district, but it is almost the invariable rule of Judge Cochran to call me in as one of the judges to sit in such cases, and it occasionally happens that he is disqualified in such cases, in which event I sit in his place under a general designation by the senior circuit judge. So, as to this particular litigation, my labor is as heavy as Judge Cochran's. I have written you thus at length for the reason that I understand that there has been some intimation made before the committee that the labor of the judge in the eastern district is very much greater than my own. I simply want you to have the facts as I see them, and I feel quite confident that Judge Cochran and the clerk of the eastern district will corroborate what I have here stated. Will you please lay this letter before the committee? Very truly yours, CHAS. I. DAWSON. DANVILLE, KY., April 7, 1930. Hon. LEWIS L. WALKER, House of Representatives: Danville Bar Association and this organization heartily approve bill to establish new Federal court district, with a court at Danville. Would a committee from here be of any assistance to your sponsorship of bill. DANVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, Danville, Ky., April 16, 1930. Representative GRAHAM, Chairman Judiciary Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.: This organization favors the creation of a new judicial district for Kentucky in order to make the courts accessible and convenient to people. DANVILLE KENTUCKY BAR ASSOCIATION. Hon. CHARLES FINLEY, Member of Congress: COVINGTON, KY., April 7, 1980. At a meeting of the Kenton County Bar Association this morning at Covington, Kenton County attorneys unanimously indorsed and recommended for passage the bill creating a third Federal court district in Kentucky and the undersigned were appointed a committee to notify Congress. RODNEY G. BRYSON. STEPHENS L. BLAKELY. DANVILLE, KY., April 10, 1930. The people of Boyle County in a great mass meeting held at the court house last night expressed their deep appreciation of your efforts to secure for Danville a Federal court and directed us to convey this information to you. As it is, witnesses, jurymen, lawyers, prisoners, and their friends must travel miles over rough roads to reach their Federal court. This entails heavy expenditures, great inconvenience, and much loss of time. The Government at small cost could establish a court in Danville which would serve a vast area. The verdict of the great mass meeting was unanimously in favor of a new district and was full of gratitude for your fine work as well as that of Congressman Finley, Mrs. Langley, and Senator Robsion. Many a poor prisoner must throw himself upon the mercy of the court for lack of funds to take lawyers and witnesses a long distance over rough roads to face the judge. We contend this is not the exalted justice guaranteed even to the humblest citizen by the Constitution. Danville is centrally located with good roads leading from all sections to be served. Representative CHRISTOPHERSON, S. H. NICHOLS, W. O. MCINTYRE, Committee of Mass Meeting. RICHMOND, KY., April 10, 1930. Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: In the matter of the judicial district for Kentucky, I desire to say that we want a judicial district instead of a floating judge. We want a fullpower court; do not want a man subject to the beck and call of the other judges. If you will look at the map of Kentucky, you will see that all of the power of the courts rest with two judges who make their headquarters in Louisville and Covington, two cities on the fringe of the State. All of the rest of the State must depend on them. The court should be brought to the people and let them see and feel the power of the courts over them. This makes for the development of the State as a whole. Louisville and Covington are trying to kill the other courts of the State, and in this they are aided by Lexington, which place also wants to kill all of the other courts. This is not fair to the rest of the State. There should be a southern district, with headquarters in that district. I do not belong to any political faction in this State, either Democratic or Republican. The State is greater than any faction, and it is the State that needs relief, not the judges of the courts, for they can only do so much work. The new judge can go to their assistance if need be, and this can be provided in the bill. Congress must remember that it is the State of Kentucky that wants relief, not the judges who say that they do not need relief. In other words, these judges do not want to relinquish any power which they possess. Respectfully, GRANT E. LILLY. RICHMOND, KY., April 8, 1930. CHAIRMAN HOUSE JUDICIARY SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, D. C. SIR: I notice in the press reports of the hearing before your subcommitte on the proposed new judicial district in Kentucky. The report is meager; but I see certain persons from Lexington, Ky., were before you voicing opposition. Lexington has only had a court for about four years, or thereabouts. Samuel M. Wilson knows nothing personally about the congested conditions of the courts in the eastern district of Kentucky. There has recently been appropriated money for a new Federal building at Lexington. There is a movement on foot to change the headquarters of the eastern district of Kentucky from Covington to Lexington and the judge favors this change. When the hearing was had some three years ago to establish this new district there was no opposition from Lexington, for the present conditions, mentioned, did not then obtain. Their opposition is purely selfish, and not based on the best interests of the litigants. The conditions around these courts are appalling. At Lexington will be seen poor people coming for miles and then have to wait for days for a hearing of their cases, and maybe then have them transferred to Richmond, London, Jackson, or other place. The same conditions obtain at London and at Jackson. I am not familiar with conditions at Catlettsburg or Covington, neither of which oppose the new district as I understand it. I am at a loss to understand why the judge opposes the new district and yet asks for another judge. When it is considered the number of criminal cases that have to be disposed of in the eastern district of Kentucky, it will readily be seen that one judge can not give them the consideration in finding the punishment that is or should be required. He necessarily has to depend on others as to the records of the defendants, and the chance for him to be imposed upon is unlimited. I expect that 95 per cent of the criminal cases in the eastern district of Kentucky are growing out of the Volstead act. At the other hearing before the subcommittee I was present, and Judge Cochran was the only person at that time offering any opposition, and then more sentiment than anything else. I am now sick in bed or I would be there. From the statistics I have before me this district is needed more than any district in the United States. Respectfully, RE SOLUTIONS G. MURRAY SMITH. Whereas there is a bill now pending in the Congress of the United States to create a new Federal judicial district for Kentucky, known as the southern district of Kentucky; and Whereas the people of southeastern Kentucky would be greatly benefited by the establishment of the new judicial district; and Whereas many people in southeastern Kentucky are deprived of their legal rights and are prohibited from filing suits in the United States court, due to the enormous expense attached to the suits and the prosecution of same at the present locations of the United States courts; and Whereas the bill provides for the establishment of a court at Paintsville, Johnson County, Ky., and one at Pikeville, Pike County, Ky., and a number of other courts in the southeastern section of the State where no courts are held at the present time; and Whereas the people of Paintsville and Johnson County will provide a suitable court room for the purpose of holding said courts and other requirements of said courts; and Whereas Paintsville is favorably located for the establishment of said court, being at the crossroads of the Mayo Trail and Garrett Highway, both Federal aid highways, and located on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway with two passenger trains each way every day; and Whereas the Paintsville Kiwanis Club sent a representative to appear before the committees in Washington about two years ago, asking that the district be created and a court be established at this place; and Whereas a court at Paintsville would serve the people of Johnson, Martin, Lawrence, Magoffin, Morgan, and Floyd Counties and with very little traveling expense attached to the prosecution of criminal as well as civil cases: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Paintsville Kiwanis Club at its regular luncheon assembled, That the proposed bill is a very desirable one and that the creation of the new district and the establishment of a United States Court at Paintsville and one at Pikeville and other courts in the districts would be a big convenience for the people in the Big Sandy Valley as well as all southeastern Kentucky and at the same time would be a saving in expenditure for witness fees and traveling expenses for the United States Government and that the Club approves of the proposed bill and recom mends that same be passed by both Houses and sent to the President for his signature; and be it further Resolved, That copies of these resolutions be sent to our Congressmen and Senators at Washington, D. C. Given under our hands this the 28th day of March, 1930. PAINTSVILLE KIWANIS CLUB, By O. W. CAINN, DR. H. G. HAZELRIGG, M. O. WHEELER, H. H. ROWLEY, Committee. CREATION OF A SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY FOR THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES CLAIMS OF PIKEVILLE AS A PLACE FOR HOLDING SUCH COURT Pikeville is the leading town on Big Sandy Valley. It is one of the few towns in the coal district of eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia which has both the activity of business progress and the poise of a cultural background. Pikeville is located on the Levisa Fork of Big Sandy River, and on the Big Sandy division of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Co., and is the county seat of Pike County, the largest county in the State of Kentucky and the second largest coal producing county in the State. Pikeville is the center of an active coal-mining district composed of the five following counties: Pike, Floyd, Knott, Letcher, and Martin. These five counties produce more than 15,000,000 tons per year, or about one-third of the total coal production of the State of Kentucky, and Pikeville is the logical center of these five counties. More than half of the coal industry of Pike County is situated on the Tug Fork of Big Sandy River on the Norfolk & Western Railroad; and this section of Pike County, which is the most prosperous section of the county and from which most of the substantial litigation comes, is accessible to Pikeville by a Federal-aid highway known as the Pikeville-Williamson Road, and is not accessible to any other town on Big Sandy. The Tug River section of Pike County is one of the most active coal sections in the country, is the seat of many substantial coal industries, is entitled to a Federal court within easy access, and this can be accomplished only by locating one at Pikeville. The great coal operations of Letcher County around Jenkins, Ky., and the Beaver Valley, which is the beehive of Floyd County, are both within easy reach of Pikeville; and Knott and Martin Counties are as accessible to Pikeville as any other point on Big Sandy; so that the facts show clearly that Pikeville is the only and logical center of the real business activity of the Big Sandy Valley and the head of Kentucky River. The section above referred to has produced a great amount of legal business and litigation. Pike County alone over a long period of years has had more appeals in the Kentucky Court of Appeals than any other county in the State, excepting only Jefferson (Louisville). Pike and Floyd Counties produce a large share of the business transactions of the Catlettsburg division of the present eastern district; and with the establishment of a Federal court at Pikeville, which will be more accessible to the litigants, the business of the court will greatly increase. The present situation of requiring litigants to make the long journey to Catlettsburg, Ky., is a source of great inconvenience. This is particularly true in prosecutions growing out of the prohibition laws where many of those accused are without means and find it very difficult to make up the necessary expense money for attending trials at so great a distance. Pikeville is well equipped to take care of the business incident to holding Federal court. It has six hotels, which are able to meet the requirements of different ones who come, and two of these hotels are thoroughly modern. State roads leading into Pikeville, complete and under construction, make it easily accessible to all of the territory above mentioned. Pikeville has the most modern jail in southern Kentucky, and the court room of the courthouse will furnish a good place for holding court until a Federal building can be erected. The town is well supplied with office buildings where all the requirements of the court and its following can readily be met. |