The bills as introduced in the Assembly were referred to the Assembly
Judiciary Committee. In the Senate, the bills went to the Senate
Judiciary Committee.
The promoters of the Commonwealth Club bills made the mistake of treating the machine Senators and Assemblymen as men who could be won over with reason and plain statement. Instead of fighting for their bills and demanding their passage, the agents of the club were willing to listen courteously to suggestions from tricksters intent upon the defeat of the measures, who were only playing for time.
Carroll Cook was at Sacramento lobbying against the bills, as were others of that gentleman's view of affairs. Cook actually appeared before the Assembly Judiciary Committee on invitation of one of its members. The courtesy shown him by Grove L. Johnson, chairman of the Committee, was touching or nauseating, as one might view it. Johnson, who was in effect the Committee, took occasion on the day of Cook's appearance to denounce the measures as revolutionary, unconstitutional, vicious.
It is interesting to note that sixty-three of the sixty-five bills as introduced in the Assembly never got beyond Johnson's Committee. They died right there. The two exceptions got out of the Committee in the closing days of the session, one on March 10th, the other on March 20th. They were reported out with the recommendation that they do pass. It was then too late to take any action on them. They died on the Assembly file.
Those who were making a fight for the measures were kept running between the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly and that of the Senate. The Senate Committee, while a majority of its members were against the machine, was led by men who were not at all in sympathy with any plan that was calculated to clear away legal cobwebs. On the pretext that the reforms proposed were covered by the Bar Association bills, or that the measures were duplicated by other bills, or that they were loosely drawn, on any pretext, in fact, the Senate Committee recommended that fifty-two of the sixty-five measures be withdrawn. And they were withdrawn. Of the thirteen remaining, seven stuck in the Committee, died there; five, just before the session closed, were referred back to the Senate with the recommendation that they do not pass. They didn't. Of the sixty-five bills, the Senate Committee gave only one favorable recommendation. This lone recipient of Committee approval got back to the Senate on March 5th. It died on the files.
Such was the fate of the measures prepared under the direction of the Commonwealth Club for reform of the methods of indictment, trial and appeal in criminal cases. The Bar Association bills received somewhat better treatment.
Of the nine so-called Bar Association bills, eight passed the Senate; the other died in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Of the eight which got through the Senate, two were defeated in the Assembly, while six passed that body and went to the Governor.
Four of the six Bar Association bills which passed dealt with the repeal of those sections of the code which provide for bills of exceptions in criminal cases and substituted the plan, described in considering the Commonwealth Club bills, of providing the higher Court with complete record of the testimony and the proceedings in the trial Court.
One of the two remaining measures requires sentence to be imposed upon a convicted felon in not less than two nor more than five days after the verdict or plea of guilty, with the right reserved for the Court of extending the time to ten days. The sixth measure defines "a motion in arrest of judgment."
Such was the outcome of the effort made by reputable lawyers and public spirited laymen to eliminate quackery from the practice of the criminal law. But measures calculated to make the practice of the criminal law even more involved and technical than it is were granted more consideration. Many of them passed both houses. How they were passed and what they are will be considered in another chapter.