ORAL HISTORY c. 1970
POLICE COURT JUDGE
POLICE COURT ESTABLISHED 1911-12
ABOLISHED BY STATE IN 1953
BY: JUDGE MONTY HELLAM
POLICE COURT JUDGE
POLICE COURT ESTABLISHED 1911-12
ABOLISHED BY STATE IN 1953
BY: JUDGE MONTY HELLAM
Let's start with the incorporation of Monterey in 1890 and at that time the city had what was known as a city Marshall as the head of the law enforcement and the city also had two nightwatchmen and the other law enforcement officer was the local constable. Now that comprised all the enforcement officers here in the city of Monterey with the exception of Sheriff's office in Salinas which also had jurisdiction in certain matters.
The court at that time, well the courts, there was a Justice Court and there was at that time a City Recorders Court which later became the Police Court but it was known a that time as the City Recorders Court. Those officers prevailed right up until 1911 or 1912 when a new city charter was drafted and the city government formerly a board of trustees, was
replaced by a city council and at that time the police department was established with a Chief of Police and Paul Hess was Monterey's first Chief of Police and there were three officers, one in New Monterey and two patrolmen on Alvarado Street. The shifts were divided as follows: the first officer coming out in the evening, came out at 6 in the evening
and the second officer, came on at 8:00 and in those days they worked about 10 hours. The 6:00 man got off about four in the morning and the other officer stayed on until the Chief of Police came down the street about eight in the morning. In later years, in addition to the Chief of Police in the daytime, they had what was known as a day officer. Well, he did numerous chores, he caught dogs and relieved the Chief at lunch time and did whatever was necessary.
Also when that new charter went in, the Police Court was established and it remained a Police Court until the state abolished all police courts and consolidated them with the Municipal court system which was finally completed in January of 1953.
The next chief of police was Gus England. He was Paul Hess's day officer and he left here at the time of the Panama Expedition in 1915 and became Captain of the guards at the Panama Expedition in San Francisco in 1915. Upon his return to the peninsula, he became Chief of Police out at Carmel and he was there until he retired.
There was a succession of police chiefs. There was Robert Anderson, he was chief in 1915 and 1916 and Ed Littlefield came on about 1918, he was the next Chief of police. Finally, we get up in 1925 when the next city charter was voted in and the city manager form of government replaced the council form of government. Well, I wouldn't say that the city
manager replaced it, It's still the city council but they called it the city manager form of government. It was voted in by the electorate here in 1925 and a man by the name of Gabrielson was brought down from Berkeley police department and was appointed chief of police locally. He afterward became chief of police over in Honolulu. He was then succeeded by the man by the name of Duddleson. By this time the police department had grown to about nine men. Following Duddleson's departure, William Oyer became chief of police and that was about 1928 as I remember it. By that time the department had
grown to eleven men and one traffic officer.
Well, then came the war years, 1940, 1941, and at that time, of course, Fred Moore was chief of police and several of the Monterey police officers went into the armed services and the department dropped down to as low as eight and nine men to guard the town. After that,of course, as the years went by the department gradually kept growing, it got to fifteen men and then twenty and so on to today's present roster of police officers. So that was more or less the way the department grew and progresses over the years.
The city council hired the city Marshall and the two night watchmen back in 1890 and the constable was elected. When the city Marshall was the head of the local enforcement, there was a City Recorders Court and the last city Marshall of Monterey, before the police department was established, was Michael Noon. His daughter lives at the Monterey Convalescent Hospital, she's up in her eighties, Flora Noon. There was a succession of judges in the city's Recorders Court, one them that I recall was a man by the name of Harry Fonda, he was a city recorder and he tried all cases that came within his jurisdiction. All murder cases were tried in superior court. Then came the police court and Nay Odis
was the first police judge and there was a succession of police judges, there was a man by the name of E.T. Earp, he was both city tax collector and police judge, he had a combined office and William Chatney succeeded him and Ross Sergeant was the next police judge and he had to retire because of illness and in 1926 John Milton Thompson became police judge, the attorney, Thompson held the office until he retired and became a Deputy District Attorney in 1933 at which time Monty Hellam became police judge to sit for the next twenty years. I held the office the longest of any judicial officer.
The communities around Monterey were quite small at this time. Seaside didn't begin to develop until WWII. There was only a few hundred people out there in a lot of sand hills. The city of Monterey city line was where Sloat Ave. is now in Oak Grove, that was the boundry line in that direction and I believe Alice St. up in New Monterey was the boundry line up there and of course, there was no Monte Regal or Monte Vista or Skyline and all the subdivisions that you have today. Those came in in succeeding years, the years I don't exactly remember. Gradually all these other subdivisions were added on to the city of Monterey which now constitutes its present size.
When Monterey was incorporated in 1890, I think Pacific Grove was incorporated and Pacific Grove had a city Marshall and they had there own court. The Sheriff's department took care of the Seaside area and the constable. The constable is still in existence where there are justice courts, like Greenfield, King City, Pacific Grove, they still have constables. The constable in Pacific Grove was appointed by the Board of Supervisors and to succeed himself he is elected, I'm not sure, but I think he is.
In 1875 the city of Monterey went broke and disincorported and at that time they moved the county seat to Salinas where it has remained ever since. Salinas was incorporated at that time. The city of Monterey remained disincorporated until 1890 when it reincorporated. There was land sold off at that time which I believe went for taxes.
As for the crime and problems in Monterey, well, of course, as far as peace disturbances and drunks and that type of element, they have always prevailed over all the years. Of course, up until before 1940 maybe, we had China town gambling. There was lottery, fantan, and domino games. Of course, every once in awhile the police department would
raid the gambling places and they would be hauled into court where they put up bail or were fined for the crimes they committed. Also until July 1915, the city had a red light district and then when the red light abatement act went into effect in 1915 in the state of California, the houses were put out of business. Most of the houses were on Washington Street for the most part, there were about six houses on that location, one facing the old ball park on Adams St. and the others all on Washington between Pearl and Franklin on the east side of the street. There was always one regiment of infantry or cavalry on the Presidio, probably 1000 to 1100 men. Fort Ord was not here at that time, it was known at that time as Gigling Reservation, it belonged to the Gigling family and occasionally the troops would go out there for a little maneuvering. It was 1940 before they actually got started with the construction of Fort Ord. The military was responsible for closing the houses on Cannery Row. They had to act on it, the city did or the authorities, because they were going to put the City of Monterey off limits if they continued running those places. Of course, the local merchants couldn't stand for anything like that, it would have been too much of a loss of revenue. So they told them to close, this is it, you're done, so they closed them up. Before the houses were told to close up, the girls were all photographed and registered with the police department. Of course, it was legal but it was tolerated. Legal prostitution as such went out in 1915 for the red light abatement act.
The original China town was out where the Hopkins Marine Station is now in Pacific Grove and that burned down in 1907. Following that, some of the Chinese moved into Ocean Ave. Ocean View Ave. which is now Cannery Row. They only thing in the early days down there was a beach called Macabee Beach and they had these tent houses for visitors and summer tourists that came to get out of hot places in San Joaquin and Sacramento valley and vacationing here in Monterey, they lived in theses tent houses and there was a beach down there for swimming and dressing rooms to put on their bathing suits. That was another era that sort of passed out of the picture and shortly after the Chinese were all burned out there at China Point, some of them moved into New Monterey and occupied some of these little houses on what was Ocean View Ave. in those days and is now Cannery Row, of course and they established a China town in New Monterey as well as
more of them came into Monterey on Washington and Franklin St. and they had a China town in there too.
Alvarado St. in those days, of course, had the full length of business houses from Pearl St. all the way to the Custom House and Franklin St. had some business on it from Alvarado to Tyler and then of course, China Town beyond that. It was all foot patrolled in those days. There were do police cars. The police officers communicated by telephone, they had, I think, in three of four places along Alvarado St., They had a red light protruding off of the standard there and when the telephone operator would get an emergency call from somebody, they'd turn on the red lights and whatever police officer was on duty would go to a call box and talk to the operator to find out the location of the trouble and then he would strike out as fast as he could on his two feet to get there. The first installation of a police radio was done by Charlie Simpson over at Colton Hall and he was a police officer but a technician, he was not a patrolman but later he became a Sergeant and was such when he was made Chief of Police in 1950.
When I was a police judge our courtroom was in Colton Hall until the Municipal Court was established across the street there on Pacific. Ray Bough and I shared the courtroom downstairs at the north end of the building. Before the move was made over to the Municipal Court, the county put in separate offices for us but we both shared the courtroom itself for the handling of cases. The Municipal courts were of higher jurisdiction in matters of fines up $1,000.00 or one year in jail. The Police Courts had jurisdiction of $500.00 fines or six months in jail. When I became judge at first they only had the Justice Court and Ray Bough was the Justice of the Peace but as the population grew, his court finally went into what was know as the Class A Justice Court which gave him jurisdictions similar to today's Municipal Court and that was the reason he became a Municipal Judge because he was excersising the class A jurisdiction at the time the Justice Court was closed and consolidated with the Municipal Court. The Justice Court at that time had the same jurisdiction as the Police Court. The Justice Court at the I became Police Judge handled all constable arrests within the judicial district and also all the Highway Patrol cases and of course, the jurisdiction was extended all the way down to below Big Sur along the coast and up the Carmel Valley and included all of Seaside, All the unincorporated area adjacent to the City of Monterey. So everything outside of the City of Monterey was handled in the Justice Court and all cases originating inside the City of Monterey went to the police court. There were no special qualifications to be a policemen or a judge in those days. The police judge was appointed by the city council. The council and the mayor did everything up until 1925 when the city council was divided into commissions, street commissioner, finance commissioner, public health, safety commissioner which he had the police department and there was a fire commissioner and the mayor. At that time each councilman had a certain section that he was the boss man of. When they prepared budgets in those days, the fire chief went to his commissioner or the police chief went to his commissioner and let him know what was needed and the approximate amount of money that would be needed and that was the way the budgets were made up. The Freeholders were the ones that were elected by the people to draw up the city charter. Once the city charter has been made up by the Board of Freeholders, the charter itself then is submitted to the voters for adoption. Then after the people adopted the charter, they elected the councilmen.
During the 1890's there was a sheriff, and Under-sheriff and maybe two or three deputies in those days.
Source: Copied from original text, located in the City of Monterey Colton Hall Archives
The court at that time, well the courts, there was a Justice Court and there was at that time a City Recorders Court which later became the Police Court but it was known a that time as the City Recorders Court. Those officers prevailed right up until 1911 or 1912 when a new city charter was drafted and the city government formerly a board of trustees, was
replaced by a city council and at that time the police department was established with a Chief of Police and Paul Hess was Monterey's first Chief of Police and there were three officers, one in New Monterey and two patrolmen on Alvarado Street. The shifts were divided as follows: the first officer coming out in the evening, came out at 6 in the evening
and the second officer, came on at 8:00 and in those days they worked about 10 hours. The 6:00 man got off about four in the morning and the other officer stayed on until the Chief of Police came down the street about eight in the morning. In later years, in addition to the Chief of Police in the daytime, they had what was known as a day officer. Well, he did numerous chores, he caught dogs and relieved the Chief at lunch time and did whatever was necessary.
Also when that new charter went in, the Police Court was established and it remained a Police Court until the state abolished all police courts and consolidated them with the Municipal court system which was finally completed in January of 1953.
The next chief of police was Gus England. He was Paul Hess's day officer and he left here at the time of the Panama Expedition in 1915 and became Captain of the guards at the Panama Expedition in San Francisco in 1915. Upon his return to the peninsula, he became Chief of Police out at Carmel and he was there until he retired.
There was a succession of police chiefs. There was Robert Anderson, he was chief in 1915 and 1916 and Ed Littlefield came on about 1918, he was the next Chief of police. Finally, we get up in 1925 when the next city charter was voted in and the city manager form of government replaced the council form of government. Well, I wouldn't say that the city
manager replaced it, It's still the city council but they called it the city manager form of government. It was voted in by the electorate here in 1925 and a man by the name of Gabrielson was brought down from Berkeley police department and was appointed chief of police locally. He afterward became chief of police over in Honolulu. He was then succeeded by the man by the name of Duddleson. By this time the police department had grown to about nine men. Following Duddleson's departure, William Oyer became chief of police and that was about 1928 as I remember it. By that time the department had
grown to eleven men and one traffic officer.
Well, then came the war years, 1940, 1941, and at that time, of course, Fred Moore was chief of police and several of the Monterey police officers went into the armed services and the department dropped down to as low as eight and nine men to guard the town. After that,of course, as the years went by the department gradually kept growing, it got to fifteen men and then twenty and so on to today's present roster of police officers. So that was more or less the way the department grew and progresses over the years.
The city council hired the city Marshall and the two night watchmen back in 1890 and the constable was elected. When the city Marshall was the head of the local enforcement, there was a City Recorders Court and the last city Marshall of Monterey, before the police department was established, was Michael Noon. His daughter lives at the Monterey Convalescent Hospital, she's up in her eighties, Flora Noon. There was a succession of judges in the city's Recorders Court, one them that I recall was a man by the name of Harry Fonda, he was a city recorder and he tried all cases that came within his jurisdiction. All murder cases were tried in superior court. Then came the police court and Nay Odis
was the first police judge and there was a succession of police judges, there was a man by the name of E.T. Earp, he was both city tax collector and police judge, he had a combined office and William Chatney succeeded him and Ross Sergeant was the next police judge and he had to retire because of illness and in 1926 John Milton Thompson became police judge, the attorney, Thompson held the office until he retired and became a Deputy District Attorney in 1933 at which time Monty Hellam became police judge to sit for the next twenty years. I held the office the longest of any judicial officer.
The communities around Monterey were quite small at this time. Seaside didn't begin to develop until WWII. There was only a few hundred people out there in a lot of sand hills. The city of Monterey city line was where Sloat Ave. is now in Oak Grove, that was the boundry line in that direction and I believe Alice St. up in New Monterey was the boundry line up there and of course, there was no Monte Regal or Monte Vista or Skyline and all the subdivisions that you have today. Those came in in succeeding years, the years I don't exactly remember. Gradually all these other subdivisions were added on to the city of Monterey which now constitutes its present size.
When Monterey was incorporated in 1890, I think Pacific Grove was incorporated and Pacific Grove had a city Marshall and they had there own court. The Sheriff's department took care of the Seaside area and the constable. The constable is still in existence where there are justice courts, like Greenfield, King City, Pacific Grove, they still have constables. The constable in Pacific Grove was appointed by the Board of Supervisors and to succeed himself he is elected, I'm not sure, but I think he is.
In 1875 the city of Monterey went broke and disincorported and at that time they moved the county seat to Salinas where it has remained ever since. Salinas was incorporated at that time. The city of Monterey remained disincorporated until 1890 when it reincorporated. There was land sold off at that time which I believe went for taxes.
As for the crime and problems in Monterey, well, of course, as far as peace disturbances and drunks and that type of element, they have always prevailed over all the years. Of course, up until before 1940 maybe, we had China town gambling. There was lottery, fantan, and domino games. Of course, every once in awhile the police department would
raid the gambling places and they would be hauled into court where they put up bail or were fined for the crimes they committed. Also until July 1915, the city had a red light district and then when the red light abatement act went into effect in 1915 in the state of California, the houses were put out of business. Most of the houses were on Washington Street for the most part, there were about six houses on that location, one facing the old ball park on Adams St. and the others all on Washington between Pearl and Franklin on the east side of the street. There was always one regiment of infantry or cavalry on the Presidio, probably 1000 to 1100 men. Fort Ord was not here at that time, it was known at that time as Gigling Reservation, it belonged to the Gigling family and occasionally the troops would go out there for a little maneuvering. It was 1940 before they actually got started with the construction of Fort Ord. The military was responsible for closing the houses on Cannery Row. They had to act on it, the city did or the authorities, because they were going to put the City of Monterey off limits if they continued running those places. Of course, the local merchants couldn't stand for anything like that, it would have been too much of a loss of revenue. So they told them to close, this is it, you're done, so they closed them up. Before the houses were told to close up, the girls were all photographed and registered with the police department. Of course, it was legal but it was tolerated. Legal prostitution as such went out in 1915 for the red light abatement act.
The original China town was out where the Hopkins Marine Station is now in Pacific Grove and that burned down in 1907. Following that, some of the Chinese moved into Ocean Ave. Ocean View Ave. which is now Cannery Row. They only thing in the early days down there was a beach called Macabee Beach and they had these tent houses for visitors and summer tourists that came to get out of hot places in San Joaquin and Sacramento valley and vacationing here in Monterey, they lived in theses tent houses and there was a beach down there for swimming and dressing rooms to put on their bathing suits. That was another era that sort of passed out of the picture and shortly after the Chinese were all burned out there at China Point, some of them moved into New Monterey and occupied some of these little houses on what was Ocean View Ave. in those days and is now Cannery Row, of course and they established a China town in New Monterey as well as
more of them came into Monterey on Washington and Franklin St. and they had a China town in there too.
Alvarado St. in those days, of course, had the full length of business houses from Pearl St. all the way to the Custom House and Franklin St. had some business on it from Alvarado to Tyler and then of course, China Town beyond that. It was all foot patrolled in those days. There were do police cars. The police officers communicated by telephone, they had, I think, in three of four places along Alvarado St., They had a red light protruding off of the standard there and when the telephone operator would get an emergency call from somebody, they'd turn on the red lights and whatever police officer was on duty would go to a call box and talk to the operator to find out the location of the trouble and then he would strike out as fast as he could on his two feet to get there. The first installation of a police radio was done by Charlie Simpson over at Colton Hall and he was a police officer but a technician, he was not a patrolman but later he became a Sergeant and was such when he was made Chief of Police in 1950.
When I was a police judge our courtroom was in Colton Hall until the Municipal Court was established across the street there on Pacific. Ray Bough and I shared the courtroom downstairs at the north end of the building. Before the move was made over to the Municipal Court, the county put in separate offices for us but we both shared the courtroom itself for the handling of cases. The Municipal courts were of higher jurisdiction in matters of fines up $1,000.00 or one year in jail. The Police Courts had jurisdiction of $500.00 fines or six months in jail. When I became judge at first they only had the Justice Court and Ray Bough was the Justice of the Peace but as the population grew, his court finally went into what was know as the Class A Justice Court which gave him jurisdictions similar to today's Municipal Court and that was the reason he became a Municipal Judge because he was excersising the class A jurisdiction at the time the Justice Court was closed and consolidated with the Municipal Court. The Justice Court at that time had the same jurisdiction as the Police Court. The Justice Court at the I became Police Judge handled all constable arrests within the judicial district and also all the Highway Patrol cases and of course, the jurisdiction was extended all the way down to below Big Sur along the coast and up the Carmel Valley and included all of Seaside, All the unincorporated area adjacent to the City of Monterey. So everything outside of the City of Monterey was handled in the Justice Court and all cases originating inside the City of Monterey went to the police court. There were no special qualifications to be a policemen or a judge in those days. The police judge was appointed by the city council. The council and the mayor did everything up until 1925 when the city council was divided into commissions, street commissioner, finance commissioner, public health, safety commissioner which he had the police department and there was a fire commissioner and the mayor. At that time each councilman had a certain section that he was the boss man of. When they prepared budgets in those days, the fire chief went to his commissioner or the police chief went to his commissioner and let him know what was needed and the approximate amount of money that would be needed and that was the way the budgets were made up. The Freeholders were the ones that were elected by the people to draw up the city charter. Once the city charter has been made up by the Board of Freeholders, the charter itself then is submitted to the voters for adoption. Then after the people adopted the charter, they elected the councilmen.
During the 1890's there was a sheriff, and Under-sheriff and maybe two or three deputies in those days.
Source: Copied from original text, located in the City of Monterey Colton Hall Archives