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é Supreme Court Overworked; Quality of Opinions Suffers Last Thursday evening Dean Erwin N. Griswold delivered the Morrison . Lecture before the State Bar of Cati- ‘fornia at Coronado, California: The following are excerpts from that ad- ‘dress: Over the past three of four years. there has been great controversy about the Supreme Court. This has not been unprecedented, for the Court is inevitably and inherently subject to controversy. ... This is especially ff, true when the issues which the Court must decide have deep emotional over- tones, Much of the criticism of the Su- preme Court in recent years can be {traced directly or indirectly to the segregation decisions of 1954 and 1955. ... There is in al] probability nothing that has happened within the past ten years which has so played into the hands of the communists as the reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in the School cases. Governor Faubus will no doubt have a place in our national chroni- cles. As my colleague, Professor Paul Freund has pointed aut. thanoh fae Roa Day Seas Re TRE Sata aay 1 Lhe ‘is not likely to be identified in tihistory with Abraham Lincoln.” «Freund, “Storm over the :‘Supreme Court,” 21 Modern L. Rev. 345, 357 (1958). Not all of the criticism of the Su- preme Court has arisen out of the School cases. There have been some other decisions, chiefly in the field of CN Liberties, which haveexgked le opposition - as eer C Dey | Quite a bit of the criticism in this area, it seems to me, has btenr-hased on plain misunderstanding. For ex- ample, a year ago there was great excitement about the Jencks case, in which the Court held that when a witness testifies who has previously given a statement to the F.B.I., that statement must be made available to counsel for the defendant. Really. this seems rather elementary. Hov could we have a decent system oa (s sel OVERWORK on page thre | Continued from pay® One) criminal trials on any other basis Yet this decision was attacked on tk ground that it opened “the F.B.I. file , to the communists, to say nothing « ‘assorted crooks, grafters, narcotir i peddlers, ete.” Nine Men again | America (1957) 18. Actually, it not de that at all, as can be seen kL anyone who will take the trouble | read it. There was an extravagal dissenting opinion in the case, whic gave rise to some misunderstandin, And the then Attorney General wet before both Houses of Congress an said that the government was col fronted with a “grave emergency, and sought a statute which Congre; passed. Whether there was such a emergency in fact seems rather doub ify), even though some lower cour! may have misapplied the decision. TE witness in the Jencks case wé Harvey Matusow. Suppose your cl ent was being convicted on Harve Matusow’s testimony, and you knev that he had made a previous state ment to the F.B.I. Wouldn’t you wan to see that statement? Wouldn't yo regard it as highly unfair and ir proper if you were not allowed tos the statement? Is there any lawy —— {who can seriously say that the S . | preme Court did anything in t’ a ; ‘Jencks case except its plain dut: fo tL) (Lawyers, especially trial lawyer Q fon a ‘should be commending t f oes ithis ecision. HARVARD LAW RECORD CAMBRIDGE, uss., dia S OCTOBER 16, 1958 a3 ~ Sey sO *1¢2 276 5 ior RECORD PRT ~ : NO GENCV 19 95) 79 101358" r \yiher Ti ii agit y