Patently Wrong

The time, trouble and money involved in taking a case to court often turn a petitioner white with anger and blue with frustration. If the whole enterprise takes an unconscionable length of time, is there no recourse? Too often, there is not. But in a recent decision, U.S. District Court Judge Marvin E. Frankel ruled that there are times when delay can be clearly illegal. His decision was largely an eloquent lecture on the abuses of administrative power.

When New York Customs men put the arm on twelve questionable books mailed from France (sample titles: Sodom, Lust, Busy Bodies') and kept them impounded for five months, the importer, one Mel Friedman, decided to fight back. "Having concluded that the Government suppressed the books for an unlawfully protracted time" without initiating any legal proceeding, said Frankel, it was only proper that they be released-"even though we go on the assumption that the books are indeed obscene."

That much disposed of, the judge proceeded to his lecture on bureaucracy. A little homework by the Customs Department on the language and history of the statute that gives it its authority would have been a good idea, Frankel implied. Action, he pointed out dryly, is supposed to be taken "upon the seizure" of a book. "The word 'upon' is defined in the dictionary as meaning 'with little or no interval after.' While it is too late in the day to suppose that the dictionary gives decisive clues to the meaning of statutes," the history of the statute's passage makes promptness "a reasonably clear command."

What's more, "this notion-that life would be simple if people merely bowed to the Customs' judgment and that substantial delay is justifiable when they do not-tends to pervade the administrative practice. It is patently wrong. Its correction should go far to bring Customs into compliance with its statutory duties." Its correction elsewhere would go far too.

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