Opinion ID: 835450
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Post-1910 Amendments to Article VII (Amended)

Text: Defendant's argument is directed at Article VII (Amended) as it was presented to the voters in 1910. [3] However, defendant first raised this issue in this case in 2004, when it moved to dismiss plaintiffs' appeal on the ground that the Court of Appeals was improperly established and therefore lacked jurisdiction to consider that appeal. Article VII (Amended), as it now appears in the Oregon Constitution, is not the same as it was when Article VII (Amended) was adopted in 1910. The article has been amended 10 times over the course of almost a century; it has been construed in dozens of decisions issued by this court; and the legislature has enacted many statutes based upon the authority conferred by that article. This case thus is different from Armatta v. Kitzhaber, 327 Or. 250, 959 P.2d 49 (1998), and other recent cases considering challenges to constitutional amendments based on alleged procedural irregularities in their adoption. Those cases all were filed relatively soon after the challenged amendments had been approved by the voters and before the voters had made changes to the challenged constitutional provisions or the legislature had enacted statutes based upon them. As the Court of Appeals noted in this case, The issue before us is not whether [the] challenge would have succeeded in 1910 but whether it will succeed today. Carey, 203 Or.App. at 408, 125 P.3d 814. Put differently, defendant's challenge to the validity of the Court of Appeals depends not on whether the Court of Appeals would have been a validly created entity if it had been established on the effective date of the 1910 constitutional amendment, but rather on whether the Court of Appeals is a valid entity now. [4] Accordingly, we first examine the changes that the voters have made to Article VII (Amended) since 1910. In doing so, we shall assume, without deciding, that the initial adoption of Article VII (Amended) in 1910 was defective in one or more of the particulars asserted by defendant. We shall then consider whether the post-1910 amendments, either because of the content of those changes themselves or with respect to their effect on Article VII (Amended) as a whole, provide a valid constitutional basis for the legislation creating the Court of Appeals. As adopted in 1910, Article VII (Amended) consisted of sections 1 through 7. [5] Section 1 provided, in part  in words that have not been changed since 1910  The judicial power of the state shall be vested in one supreme court and in such other courts as from time to time may be created by law. That section also provided for the election of judges to six-year terms and prohibited judicial compensation from being reduced during a judge's term. Section 2 provided that the existing judicial system, except as expressly changed by the adoption of Article VII (Amended), would remain as it had been and also granted the Supreme Court original jurisdiction in mandamus, quo warranto, and habeas corpus proceedings. Section 3 contained a number of provisions respecting the conduct of trials and appeals from trial court decisions, and section 4 dealt with terms and decisions of the Supreme Court. Section 5 provided that a verdict in a civil case could be rendered by three-fourths of the jurors and also established procedures for grand juries and for indictments. Section 6 dealt with misconduct by public officers, and section 7 prescribed the oath of office for judges of the Supreme Court. The people  the source of Oregon's Constitution  adopted Article VII (Amended), by initiative petition, in 1910. The people then made changes to that article on 10 separate occasions. They amended different sections of Article VII (Amended); they repealed and replaced other sections; and they added new sections, some of which they subsequently amended. [6] We turn to a discussion of those changes. Article VII (Amended) was first amended in 1958. Two years earlier, in State ex rel Madden v. Crawford, 207 Or. 76, 295 P.2d 174 (1956), this court had considered the constitutionality of a statute that authorized designating circuit court judges to sit temporarily as members of this court to assist the court with its workload. The court held that the statute was unconstitutional because it permitted circuit court judges to sit as members of the Supreme Court, even though Article VII (Amended), section 1, required that members of the Supreme Court be elected. The 1957 legislature then submitted to the voters a new proposed section 2a to Article VII (Amended) that authorized the legislature to empower this court to appoint retired judges to sit as temporary members of this court, to appoint members of the bar to sit as temporary members of inferior courts, and to assign judges of inferior courts to serve temporarily outside the district for which they were elected. Or. Laws 1957, SJR 30. The voters approved that proposal in 1958. The 1957 Legislative Assembly also submitted to the voters a proposed amendment to section 5 of Article VII (Amended) that authorized a person to waive indictment by a grand jury and instead to be charged by an information filed by the district attorney. Or. Laws 1957, SJR 23. That proposal also was approved by the voters in 1958. In 1974, the voters repealed amended section 5 and replaced it with the current version. That 1974 amendment revised the procedures for convening a grand jury and specified when a district attorney could charge a person by filing an information. Or. Laws 1973, SJR 1. The voters again amended Article VII (Amended) in 1960, adopting a proposal submitted by the legislature that required judges to retire at the end of the calendar year in which the judge attained the age of 75. Or. Laws 1959, SJR 3. That measure also authorized the legislature by law to fix a lesser age for mandatory retirement (but not earlier than the end of the calendar year in which the judge became 70); to provide for temporarily recalling retired judges to active service; and to authorize or require the retirement of judges for disability or other cause that rendered the judge incapable of performing judicial duties. The 1961 Legislative Assembly submitted to the voters and the voters in 1962 approved another addition to Article VII (Amended)  section 2b  which authorized the legislature, when it enacted laws creating courts inferior to the Supreme Court or dealing with court jurisdiction, to make such laws applicable to all judicial districts, to designated classes of judicial districts, or to particular judicial districts. Or. Laws 1961, SJR 34. [7] Although the new section 2b itself did not purport to authorize the legislature to establish courts, it explicitly referred to laws creating courts inferior to the Supreme Court and thus necessarily assumed that the legislature already had the authority under Article VII (Amended), section 1, to enact laws creating such courts. A provision authorizing the Supreme Court to remove a judge from office for misconduct was added to Article VII (Amended) as section 8 in 1968. Or. Laws 1967, SJR 9. That measure identified certain actions that could be grounds for removal, but, like many of the other amendments to Article VII (Amended), it provided that the specific procedures would be established by statute, by stating that removals would be [i]n the manner provided by law  . Section 8 of Article VII (Amended) was further amended in 1976, with the addition of suspension and censure as possible sanctions, in addition to removal from office, and with changes in the grounds for discipline. See Or. Laws 1975, SJR 48 (setting out text of proposed amendment to Article VII (Amended), section 8). The legislature proposed, and the people in 1972 approved, a new section 9 of Article VII (Amended), authorizing legislation to permit juries consisting of less than 12 but not less than six jurors. Or. Laws 1971, SJR 17. In 1974, the people amended Article VII (Amended), section 3, to increase the value in controversy that would entitle a party to a jury trial from $20 to $200. Or. Laws 1973, HJR 71. Section 3 was again amended in 1996 to increase the value in controversy requirement to $750. Or. Laws 1995, HJR 47.