Opinion ID: 1757152
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: authority of court

Text: This Court has the Constitutional authority to require trial court judges to recuse themselves in cases where a fair and impartial trial dictates such removal. Aetna, et al. v. Berry, 669 So.2d 56 (Miss. 1995); Jenkins v. Forrest County General Hospital, 542 So.2d 1180 (Miss. 1988). There is no reason why this Court, acting through a majority of its members, cannot require an individual Justice to remove himself. No individual Justice has authority to speak for the Court. He has authority to voice and circulate his views and a single vote when the Court speaks, and that is it. The Court can only act in concert, and speak in a body. Each individual Justice is co-equal with every other member, but each and every member is subordinate to the will of the Court expressed through a vote of the majority. A member of this Court as an individual is just as subordinate to the will of the majority acting in concert as a trial court judge. An individual Justice is not the Court. A simple majority vote by a quorum of this Court is the Court speaking. Miss. Const., Art 6, § 145B. Each member of this Court holds a Constitutional office, and has been duly elected by the people of his District. He or she is entitled to all the emoluments of the office of Supreme Court Justice. But no member of this Court can have the right to sit in judgment on a case in which his personal disqualifications if applied to a trial court judge would justify the latter's removal. There can be no vestiture of judicial power in judges who are partial. State ex rel. Hannah v. Armijo, 38 N.M. 73, 28 P.2d 511, 512 (N.M., 1933). Moreover, no litigant has any Constitutional right to have any particular Justice sit on his case. Two-thirds of the electorate in Mississippi had no voice in the election of each member of this Court. It is repugnant to any view of an orderly and fair administration of justice that the Court, speaking through a majority vote of its members, is unable to inform a single member he cannot sit in a particular case. This view denies the Court the power, expressed through a majority of its members, to preserve the honor and sanctity of the Court even in circumstances of paramount public importance. This Court, as other appellate courts throughout the United States, has internal rules which authorize disqualification of a member of the court from participating in a case for reasons such as delay in voting or writing an opinion or a dissent. Clearly then, when a member of this Court would be disqualified if the same facts were applied to a trial judge, the Court can direct his recusal. Deliberative bodies, in order that the will of a majority of their members may be ascertained and registered in an orderly way, must, ex necessitate rei, be governed by rules of procedure to which each member thereof must conform. 67A C.J.S. Parliamentary Law, § 4. Every lawful body must have the authority to preserve and protect its own integrity. No public body can be put at the mercy or whim of one of its members and survive, most especially the court of last resort in the State. In short, the Court has this authority because as an institution it must have it to exist. If a Supreme Court lacked such authority, it would be denigrated to the whim or caprice of a mentally unbalanced or, God forbid, corrupt member. [2]