The Price of Justice
The Washington State Supreme Court admits that legal machinery has long worked against the poor, promising to prioritize the cases of those unable to afford bail.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A heavy indictment against the courts has been that the wheels of justice moved expeditiously or were clogged with delay according to the wealth or poverty of the litigant or person under arrest. As eminent a jurist as President Taft has deplored the tendency of the courts to becloud issues, split hairs, etc., at the expense of the man of little or no means. It has been a real indictment and is directly responsible for the raising of the question of the 'recall of the judiciary' to a position of national importance. The supreme court of this state has recently established a ruling that hereafter in the courts of this state the cases of persons accused of crime and unable to give bail shall be advanced to the head of the docket and be tried first. Thus does the court acknowledge what the lay world has long bitterly asserted: that the ponderous machinery of the law worked to the disadvantage of the poor. It is a tardy admission, but we welcome any measure of relief it may bring.
“Thus does the court acknowledge what the lay world has long bitterly asserted: that the ponderous machinery of the law worked to the disadvantage of the poor.”
More than a century later, the debate over cash bail and its disproportionate impact on low-income defendants remains a central, unresolved conflict in the American justice system. The 1911 observation that justice functions differently based on one's bank account remains as resonant today as it was in the Everett Labor Journal.
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