Views from the Bench

• Publication year: 1989
• Pages: 30
• Citation: Vol. 2 No. 8 Pg. 30

VIEWS FROM THE BENCH Vol. 2 No. 8 Pg. 30 Utah Bar Journal October, 1989

State of the Federal Judiciary

Remarks of Bruce S. Jenkins Chief Judge, United States District Court

District of Utah, at the Utah State Bar Annual Meeting Sun Valley, Idaho June 1989

President Kasting, Chairman Mazuran, distinguished colleagues:

In 1641, in a Massachusetts statute then called the Body of Liberties, the following language is found:

Every man that fended himself unfit to plead his own case in any Court shall have Libertine to imploy any man against whom the Court does not except, to helped him, Provided, he gives him noe fee or reward for the paines.

In the Session laws of the First Legislature of the Territory of Utah, there is found in an Act for the Regulation of Attorneys the following:

Sec. 2. No person or persons, employing counsel in any of the courts of this Territory, shall be compelled by any process of law to pay the counsel so employed, for any services rendered by counsel, before or after, or during the process of the trial in the case.

I sometimes think those were the days when I practiced. Each statute is a wonderful. I example of legislative power in action— some say legislative power run wild. Both are powerful arguments for continuing court, not legislative, oversight of our integrated Bar, our profession. Above all else, both are an argument for fairness and self-discipline by Bar members, in dealing with clients. The Legislature spoke once on the subject of fees. They can do it again.

Now those provisions, long since repealed, have nothing to do and everything to do with what I am supposed to talk about.

I am supposed to talk about the status, the performance and the prospects of the Federal District Court of Utah. To talk about the court without talking about the court officers—the lawyers—would provide neither balance nor depth—it would be two dimensional—like looking at a picture with one eye closed.

It may be news to some and old hat to others that this year, 1989, is the bicentennial of the federal judicial system. Whether news or old hat, it is true that in 1789 the First Congress, then meeting in New York to implement the provisions of the newly ratified Constitution, passed "An Act to Establish the Judicial Courts of the United States."

It was in that First Congress the Federal Judicial System was born.

That First Congress was targeted to begin March 4, 1789. It started late, April 6. (Congress now starts on time and ends late.) The next day, April 7, a committee was charged with the responsibility of bringing in a judiciary bill before adjournment. The chairman of the committee was a man named Oliver Ellsworth. The bill was introduced June 12 by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. It was primarily authored by Ellsworth, a distinguished lawyer from Connecticut, a United States Senator, a former member of the Continental Congress, and a member of the Constitutional Convention. He was also fated to serve briefly as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 1796 to 1800. He preceded Marshall. By September 24, 1789, the Judiciary Bill had been passed by both houses and signed by President George Washington, who, two days later, sent up his nominations for...