Order in Court

In Detroit, the nation's fifth largest city, womb of the supercharged, fuel-injected future, the first bar of justice for alleged lawbreakers is quaintly called, in a reminiscence of 14th century England, Recorder's Court. Little beyond its name is Chaucerian. Until recently it was a paradigm of judicial systems crumbling under the burden of civic decay. Justin Ravitz, now a judge of Recorder's Court, once described it as "the cesspool of the legal world."

Until 1966 there were only ten recorders, or judges; they rated a notch higher and exercised slightly more authority than the average metropolitan police magistrate. Some of them sat only four hours a day, leaving plenty of time for drinking. Collectively, they bumbled through a mere 130 felony trials a year, plus uncounted misdemeanor cases. With the crime explosion of the late '60s, the backlog grew to 5,422 felonies. A person charged with a felony waited an average of 4 1/2 months to enter a plea, and the average time from arraignment to judgment was 13 1/2 months.

As a result of the courtroom delay, Wayne County Jail, built to house 1,100 prisoners, was packed with 1,500. One recorder's courtroom held an infamous bullpen into which each morning 30 to 40 wretched drunks were herded, prodded before the judge and out again to jail or the streets. The black community, which was soon to top 50% of Detroit's population, supplied most of the defendants, and black leaders often complained that Recorder's Court justice was far from colorblind.

Today there are still complaints about the quality of its justice, but most of them are of a totally different kind. And they come from the opposite side of the color line. It took a crash program begun in 1969 and as many as 40 visiting judges to cut the backlog down to manageable proportions. Now the number of permanent judges has been increased to 20. And eight of them, including one woman, are black.

Court practices have changed radically. Drunks are no longer run through the mill at a one-a-minute rate but are given a choice between standing trial with a jail term possible and going to a detoxification center. This program has eliminated about 75% of alcoholic recidivism. No longer are suspects held as long as three days for investigation; each afternoon the police must give a precinct-by-precinct report on the disposition of suspects. Arraignments now usually come within 24 hours, a trial date is set within five or six days, and trial begins in 60 to 90 days on the average. Jail population has -sunk well below 1,000. Court is held 365 days a year. A Jewish judge takes the duty on Christmas Day.

The trials themselves have a different complexion, with juries approximating the city's racial makeup. And juries virtually never vote to convict if there is any suspicion of police brutality. This, perhaps more than any other change, has brought court reformers into head-on collision with the police. A columnist wrote in the Detroit Police Officers' Association newspaper: "If a person accused of a crime appears before Judge James Del Rio and says he was beaten by the police, Del Rio calls the policeman a liar, and dismisses the case." Gary Lee, the association's president, declares: "The police know they are wasting their time at that court. The streets are loaded with people that any decent judicial system would have in jail."

Del Rio has ample company among the recorders under police attack. High on the list is George W. Crockett Jr., 64, a black attorney who once served four months for contempt following a Smith Act trial in which he defended eleven accused Communists. Elected to the bench in 1966, he set up court in police headquarters following a 1969 shootout at a black church and immediately began releasing prisoners who were being held without counsel. Now presiding judge for a term of one year, Crockett is still tough on the cops, but has come to appear conservative by comparison with newer, still more outspoken judges.

Del Rio, 49, was literally salvaged from a trash can as a newborn, and was adopted and raised by a Jewish father and a black mother. A high-pressure businessman since the age of 15, he ran a successful real estate firm, won election to the state legislature, crammed his way through law school and passed the bar.

Explosive enough on the bench, Del Rio once called Norman L. Lippitt, attorney for the police association, into his chambers and, in his own words, told Lippitt:

"Don't give me that smart-ass Jewish attitude, because I've been a smart-ass Jew for 16 years of my life." The police newspaper has called him "Bozo the Clown"; for this and other insults, he has filed a $200,000 libel suit.

No "Oyez." The last vestiges of court formality disappeared with the installation in 1972 of Justin Ravitz, 33, an avowed Marxist. When he was sworn in, with cowboy boots projecting from under his robe, Ravitz remained seated during the Pledge of Allegiance. It was, he said, a farce, because there is no "liberty and justice for all." When Ravitz enters court there is no cry of "Oyez, oyez, oyez!" and the assemblage does not rise.

Critics concede that Ravitz's dress and politics do not color his decisions.

Recorder's Court still has its problems. Police critics are at least partly correct in charging that suspects are sometimes released too readily; one man had to be arrested for burglary three times in four days before bail was set high enough to take him out of circulation. Some of the judges--like low-level jurists elsewhere--lack judicial polish and expertise. But the court has at least climbed out of the cesspool.

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