Opinion ID: 2607473
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prestatehood Kansas Jurisprudence

Text: Oklahoma's statutory provisions governing new trial quests came from Kansas. [9] A Prestatehood Kansas construction of a statute later adopted in Oklahoma becomes codified with the statute and is accorded the same effect as though it had been expressly carried into the body of our legislative law. [10] When we originally adopted the provision for a delayed new trial petition, [11] now in § 655, the Kansas Supreme Court had held that verification was not required for motions [12] or petitions, [13] but affidavits were mandatory when new trial was sought on grounds of misconduct, accident or surprise or newly discovered evidence. [14] Our early poststatehood jurisprudence modified the Kansas construction by requiring that a new trial quest on § 654 grounds (by motion or petition) be verified. [15] Like Kansas, we have held that a § 655 petition must be supported by affidavits when new trial is sought on the grounds of newly discovered evidence. [16] Judicial construction of a statute, when followed by long-standing acquiescence, constitutes legislative approval and ratification of its accepted meaning. [17] It gives that construction the effect of legislation. [18] When a previously construed statute has been reenacted in the same or substantially similar terms, the legislature is presumed to have been familiar with its construction and to have adopted that gloss as a part of the law, unless a contrary intent should clearly appear. [19] The originally adopted statute  our § 655's predecessor  remained unchanged until its 1968 amendment. [20] It was then revised to make the procedure compatible with the abolition of terms of court. [21] Except for this change, the pre-1968 version of § 655 stood reenacted. Although our early decisions may have somewhat strayed from the meaning given § 655 in Kansas, we must assume today that (a) the legislature, cognizant of the interpretation consistently placed by this court on § 655 over the years, has acquiesced in and approved the Oklahoma construction by failing to amend that section and (b) by reenacting § 655 in substantially the same terms, the legislature adopted its judicial construction as a part of our statutory law.