Opinion ID: 1837873
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Proposition Three

Text: If the first two propositions are to represent anything other than unrelated observations, the reader must conclude that there is a third proposition supporting the principal opinion: that from the date of Alabama's statehoodDecember 14, 1819until Amendment 328 was proclaimed ratified on December 27, 1973, the essential factfinding function of the common law jury system was not protected by the organic law of this state. Attorneys on both sides of the bench will be amazed to discover that prior to 1973, according to the principal opinion, jury verdicts in Alabama could have been ignored with impunity and without fear of infringing on the right to a trial by jury. Indeed, the respect for the sanctity of jury verdicts formed the basis for this Court's decision in Jawad v. Granade, 497 So.2d 471 (Ala.1986). Although Mr. Justice Houston states that Jawad was decided under Amendment 328 as well as § 11, a number of the cases upon which the holding in Jawad rested were decided long before the adoption of Amendment 328. See, e.g., Castleberry v. Morgan, 28 Ala.App. 70, 178 So. 823 (1938) (refusing to follow the Cobb standard); McEntyre v. First National Bank of Headland, 27 Ala.App. 311, 313, 171 So. 913, 914-15 (1937) (in exercising the power [to set aside a jury verdict], the court should be careful not to infringe the right of trial by jury, and should bear in mind that it is their exclusive province to... find the facts). By far, the most puzzling aspect of the principal opinion is its failure to demonstrate the relevance of any of these disjointed propositions to the ultimate conclusion. More specifically, the opinion fails to demonstrate how the second proviso in Amendment 328, § 6.11, which operates as a restriction on the power of the judiciary, restrains the power of the legislature. Indeed, Mr. Justice Houston's analysis appears occasionally to lead away from the conclusion that Amendment 328, § 6.11, restrains the legislature's power. If his analysis does so concede, and if, as the opinion states, § 11 traditionally protected only (1) impartiality, (2) duodecimality, and (3) unanimity, rather than the jury's traditional factfinding function, then how can it be said that § 6-11-3 violates the right to a trial by jury as guaranteed by § 11? If the statute, under the analysis offered in the principal opinion, does violate § 11, it must be because the protection for the jury's factfinding function, which was added in Amendment 328, § 6.11, has somehow become engrafted on § 11. Nowhere does the opinion demonstrate how or when this engrafting took place. Its discussion of Amendment 328, therefore, becomes irrelevant and the conclusion of the opinion that § 6-11-3 violates the right to a trial by jury as guaranteed by § 11 is not based on identifiable principles of logic. In my view, the rationale of the principal opinion is seriously flawed, because it fails to apply a stand up § 11 analysis to the challenged legislation. I would hold forthrightly that § 6-11-3 violates the right to a trial by jury as that right is, and has always been, guaranteed by § 11 of the Constitution of Alabama.