The Battle for the Courtroom Door
Mayor Ronald and Judge Rivers engage in a bizarre standoff over who has the authority to fire and appoint a municipal court bailiff.
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.
Mayor Ronald’s appointment of Fred M. Wheeler as bailiff of the municipal court has caused a peculiar contest with Judge Rivers. The mayor dismissed J.H. White, the incumbent, but the Judge refused to sign the dismissal, as no charges were brought against White. Judge Rivers accepted Wheeler as an additional bailiff but refused to remove White. The Mayor then instructed Chief of Police Jackson to strip White of his badge. The conflict culminated yesterday when the Judge insisted on using White to transport a prisoner to jail, only for the jailer to refuse to accept the prisoner from anyone but the Mayor's approved bailiff, Wheeler. The prisoner was shuttled back and forth between the court and the jailer until the Judge relented and sent him with Wheeler. The matter remains an unresolved power struggle between the executive and judicial branches.
“The judge to get rid of Carroll finally sent him back to jail in charge of Wheeler, and this time he was accepted and locked up.”
This turf war over who controls the courthouse personnel underscores the historic ambiguity regarding executive versus judicial power in Seattle's early municipal government. The spectacle of a prisoner being shuttled back and forth highlights the absurdity of such institutional gridlock.
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