I approve the plan thus outlined, and recommend the legislation
necessary for its application to our judicial system.
The present mode of compensating United States marshals and district
attorneys should, in my opinion, be changed. They are allowed to charge
against the Government certain fees for services, their income being
measured by the amount of such fees within a fixed limit as to their
annual aggregate. This is a direct inducement for them to make their
fees in criminal cases as large as possible in an effort to reach the
maximum sum permitted. As an entirely natural consequence, unscrupulous
marshals are found encouraging frivolous prosecutions, arresting people
on petty charges of crime and transporting them to distant places for
examination and trial, for the purpose of earning mileage and other
fees; and district attorneys uselessly attend criminal examinations far
from their places of residence for the express purpose of swelling their
accounts against the Government. The actual expenses incurred in these
transactions are also charged against the Government.
Thus the rights and freedom of our citizens are outraged and public
expenditures increased for the purpose of furnishing public officers
pretexts for increasing the measure of their compensation.
I think marshals and district attorneys should be paid salaries,
adjusted by a rule which will make them commensurate with services
fairly rendered.
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