Opinion ID: 1797317
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Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Nature of the Office of District Attorney General

Text: It is necessary first to determine the nature of the office of District Attorney General, for if this is a judicial office, there is no substantial separation of powers problem. The District Attorney General is a constitutional officer. Art. VI, Sec. 5, a part of the Judicial Article of our constitution, provides for an Attorney for the State for any circuit or district, for which a Judge having criminal jurisdiction shall be provided by law. [2] This Court has not heretofore addressed the nature of the office of District Attorney General; however, in Manning v. State, 195 Tenn. 94, 100, 257 S.W.2d 6, 9 (1953), the Court, without citing any authority, stated: The District Attorney General is a quasi judicial officer, representing the State of Tennessee. (Emphasis supplied.) An examination of Manning , however, will reveal that this statement was made in the context of a case where the trial court was reversed because of improper argument by the prosecutor. What the Court was actually holding was that the District Attorney General is an officer of the Court. In the introduction to the ABA Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function, at page 18, it is stated: The American prosecutor, representing the executive branch under a system of divided powers defined in a written constitution, is an officer of the court only in the same sense as any other lawyer. As this Court, speaking through then Chief Justice Lansden, declared in State v. Costen, 141 Tenn. 539, 545, 213 S.W. 910, 911 (1919), [h]e has no judicial power, and his ministerial power must be responsive to the direction of the state, which is his client. In People v. District Court in and for County of Larimer, 186 Colo. 335, 527 P.2d 50 (1974), the Supreme Court of Colorado declared: While he is an officer of the court as any other attorney, a district attorney is not a judicial officer not (sic) a part of the judicial branch of the government. A district attorney belongs to the executive branch. (Emphasis supplied). 527 P.2d at 52. The American Bar Association Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function, Sec. 1.1(a), declare: The office of prosecutor, as the chief law enforcement official of his jurisdiction, is an agency of the executive branch of government which is charged with the duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed and enforced in order to maintain the rule of law. (Second emphasis supplied). I have no hesitancy in holding that the District Attorney General is an officer of the executive department. [3] Thus, the apparent problem of separation of powers stems from the fact that the District Attorney General and the trial judge are members of different branches of government. I regard this issue to be more apparent than real. This necessarily follows from the fact that the precise preservation of the demarcation between the three branches of government is not always possible and the boundary lines frequently tend to be fuzzy and blurred. Bank of Commerce and Trust Company v. Senter, 149 Tenn. 569, 260 S.W. 144 (1924). See also Underwood v. State, 529 S.W.2d 45 (Tenn. 1975). Appropos this discussion we quote with approval from State v. Leonardis, 73 N.J. 360, 375 A.2d 607 (1977): The aim of the constitutional provision is not to prevent cooperative action among the three branches of government, but to guarantee a system of checks and balances. This notion of a blending of powers is expressed in various opinions by both this Court and the United States Supreme Court, interpreting the State and Federal Constitutions. In Brown v. Heymann, 62 N.J. 1, 297 A.2d 572 (1972), Chief Justice Weintraub explained: It is well to repeat that while the doctrine of separation of powers is designed to prevent a single branch from claiming or receiving inordinate power, there is no bar to cooperative action among the branches of government. On the contrary, the doctrine necessarily assumes the branches will coordinate to the end that government will fulfill its mission. [62 N.J. at 11, 297 A.2d at 578] This same theme  approving cooperative effort among the three branches of government  was expressed by Justice Jackson in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952): [w]here the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. 343 U.S. at 635, 72 S.Ct. at 870, 96 L.Ed. at 1199 (Jackson, J., concurring). And Judge Gibbons of the Third Circuit recently described the doctrine as calling for [a] dispersal of decisional responsibility in the exercise of each power, as distinguished from a separation of powers... . Gibbons, The Interdependence of Legitimacy, 5 Seton Hall L.Rev. 435, 436 (1974). See also, Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 1.09 at 68 (1958) (The danger is not blended power. The danger is unchecked power.). 375 A.2d at 612-13. In my judgment, nothing in our pretrial diversion statutes runs counter to the doctrine of separation of powers.