lines. Each district would elect two supreme court judges, at least one of whom would hold court in each county in the district two or more times each year. The state would also be divided into a minimum of three “convenient districts” in each of which the supreme court in bank would hold session at least once annually for the sole purpose of hearing appeals. Under Ranney’s scheme, five judges would make up the court in bank. The judge in each of five alternating judicial districts with the shortest time to serve would sit in bank one year, and a judge from each of the other districts would serve the next. The chief judge would be chosen from among the members serving as provided by law (1:551).
On June 26, 1850, the committee of the whole took up the majority report. After the committee agreed to have all supreme court judges elected on a statewide basis, Ranney moved to require every district court to meet annually in each county in the district. The motion touched off a strenuous, ill-tempered debate. In an extended defense of the majority’s position, which did not have the district court meeting in each county, Swan observed that the district court, as an appellate body, would be a “mere paper court,” a “lawyer’s court,” at which there would be no need for parties, witnesses, or jurors. It would be a waste of time and money to have this court traipse around from county to county. Swan then made it clear that the biggest problem with the existing judicial system was the workload of the supreme court. That tribunal, he said, was “emphatically a stirrup court, chasing from county to county,” and forced “to decide promptly and without careful deliberation” in order to avoid “deny[ing] justice by delay.” Under the majority proposal, the district courts would be a “breakwater to prevent the flow of business into the supreme court.” Indeed, the only reason for the supreme court to meet in bank would be to settle differences among the circuits (1:586, 590–92).
Stanbery and fellow Whig Simeon Nash also assailed Ranney’s proposed amendment. It would, they said, leave no discretion to the legislature to make adjustments to suit the needs of different districts. It would encumber the supreme and common pleas judges who made up the district court with impossible schedules. The amendment would in effect restore the old system that had caused all the problems in the first place and led to the calling of the constitutional convention. Even Peter Hitchcock, who sympathized with Ranney’s insistence that the court remain close to the people, opposed the amendment. Noting that the district and supreme courts were chiefly courts of appeal, Hitchcock denied that the judges would be too pressed for time to travel to every county in the district. However, he objected to fixing the meeting times and places in the constitution. He preferred to leave those matters to legislative discretion (1:595–97).
The debate ranged well beyond Ranney’s proposed amendment to embrace the cost of the majority plan, the need to attract competent lawyers to the bench, and other issues. With the discussion covering so much ground, Ranney reentered the fray, insisting that his constituents had sent him to the convention to represent their opinions and that he would do so “without fear, favor or affection,” notwithstanding the eminence of his opponents on the judiciary committee. The people demanded reform of the judiciary. Before defending the specific proposals of his report, Ranney laid out its animating principles. “[T]he practical operation of the law through the Judiciary,” he declaimed, “is the most important of all the operations of our government.” Without it, the other branches of government “can do nothing towards carrying justice home to the people.” Justice delayed was justice denied and fostered disrespect for the law. “Delay in the administration of justice to those who are seeking to recover their rights,” he said, “is calculated to destroy their peace of mind, diminish their regard for, and confidence in, the judicial tribunals, and to keep convulsed whole neighborhoods, embittering the fountains of social life” (1:604–5).
Ranney saw the majority report’s appellate process as a big obstacle to speedy justice. There ought to be as few appeals as possible. Yet the majority report proposed that an unnecessary supreme court sit atop the judicial hierarchy. The court would have little to do and would have no jurisdiction that could not be better exercised at the district level. It would have a chief justice elected by the voters of the whole state and associates conscious of having “com[e] up from the districts”—a sort of grand pooh-bah presiding over a bunch of provincials. It would have an even number of justices who, if evenly divided, would in essence be confessing to the parties “that the court is powerless to decide between them—that the law is struck with a paralysis.” It would be a purely “paper court,” excluded from “participation in the every day business of judicial duty” and separated from daily familiarity and practical application of legal rules. The majority report, Ranney declared, envisioned an “august” court surrounded by a “luminous” bar sitting in the capital, “[i]ts dazzling appearance . . . such, that no county court lawyer could ever look upon it and live.” But the greatest judges, from Lord Mansfield to Chief Justice Taney, had been “stirrup judges,” riding the circuit and catching the spirit as well as the letter of the law (1:605–7).
Ranney had little use for the district appellate courts proposed by the majority. Outside of Hamilton County they would sit in only two places in each of eight large, multicounty districts, forcing attorneys and parties to travel great distances and making even the filing and copying of papers a burden. Moreover, appeals would be “as liberal as before,” and every equity case would be the subject of an appeal, which Ranney regarded as a major flaw in the majority’s system. “Who does not see,” asked Ranney, “that in all this you will experience great delay, to say nothing of the increased expense in bringing the cause to hearing.” Under the proposed system the appellate court would meet twice a year, “but to get the benefits of it without waiting a whole year, you may have to go to a remote part of the district, and you will of course have a greater delay, than if the cause was settled in the county in which it originated.” Under his own scheme, Ranney continued, appeals would be decided “on the spot, in the same county where the suit first commenced, by the two judges of the supreme court—the same number that now decide finally; all the difference is, they now decide on appeal, they will then decide in the first instance” (1:608–9).
Ranney also attacked the county courts proposed by the majority. They had insufficient jurisdiction to gain the respect of the community. Their judges’ compensation was fee-based, which could only induce them to corruption and an encouragement of litigation (1:609–10).
In defense of his proposed substitute plan Ranney declared it to be “simple and plain, and easily understood.” It provided for good courts in the first instance, rather than relying on good appellate courts to correct errors. It provided for no “unnecessary judges” and brought the courts to the bar, the parties, and the people. And, he contended, it was cheaper than the majority’s system, an assertion that Kennon rejected (1:610–11).
In response to Ranney’s attack members of the judiciary committee noted that nothing in the majority report prevented the legislature from requiring the district courts to meet in every county. They pointed out that the matter of whether a district court should be required to meet in every county in the district had been the most contentious issue in committee and claimed that Ranney was the only member who had refused to go along with the compromise embodied in the majority report (1:612–14, 617).
After further sharp debate the committee of the whole rejected Ranney’s amendment by a vote of 42–35 (1:621–22, 626). That was on June 28, 1850. On July 9 the convention, fearful of the cholera epidemic then sweeping the state, adjourned until December, when it reconvened in Cincinnati. Not until January 21, 1851, did the convention again take up in earnest the judiciary committee’s report.
Once again Ranney offered an amendment that provoked heated argument. This time Ranney sought to compel the supreme court to meet at least once annually in each of nine districts. His aims, as before, were to expedite justice, reduce costs, and bring the courts closer to the people. No one else from the judiciary committee spoke in favor of the amendment, and only Humphreville voted for it. The amendment went down to defeat 50–45. But Ranney vowed to keep offering amendments to have the supreme court sit in different places throughout the state—five, and
