Opinion ID: 1852242
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 21

Heading: Newell v. State

Text: For generations, this Court was not aggressive in taking a leadership role in all things judicial, including procedural matters related to judicial processing of substantive law enacted by the legislature. As a result, our judiciary has struggled to adapt well-intentioned, but archaic, ill-suited procedural statutes, to the needs of litigants. The beginning of the end of the struggle was marked by Newell v. State, 308 So.2d 71 (Miss.1975), wherein this Court was faced with a conflict between unworkable procedural statutes enacted by the legislature, and its own constitutional mandate to fulfill its responsibility to the judiciary for the fair administration of justice. Justice Neville Patterson, speaking for a unanimous Court, stated: We are keenly aware of, and measure with great respect, legislative suggestions concerning procedural rules and they will be followed unless determined to be an impediment to justice or an impingement upon the constitution. The inherent power of this Court to promulgate procedural rules eminates from the fundamental constitutional concept of the separation of powers and the vesting of judicial powers in the courts. Matthews v. State, 288 So.2d 714 (Miss.1974); Gulf Coast Drilling & Exploration Co. v. Permenter, 214 So.2d 601 (Miss.1968); and Southern Pacific Lbr. Co. v. Reynolds, 206 So.2d 334 (Miss.1968), wherein the following is stated: ... The phrase judicial power in section 144 of the Constitution includes the power to make rules of practice and procedure, not inconsistent with the Constitution, for the efficient disposition of judicial business. 206 So.2d at 335. Consider Franck, Practice and Procedure in Mississippi: An Ancient Recipe for Modern Reform, 43 Miss. L.J. 287 (1972).    The procedural changes needed to meet the needs of a particular era and to maintain the judiciary's constitutional purpose would be better served, we believe, if promulgated by those conversant with the law through years of legal study, observation and actual trials in accord with their oaths rather than by well-intentioned, but over-burdened, legislators of other pursuits and professions. As are cognizant of the fact that inertia is the easier route for judges, but presently respond to that which was stated by Justice Griffith in Shoemake v. Federal Credit Co., 188 Miss. 683, 192 So. 561 (1940), in dissenting: It is easier, of course, to decide cases and to write opinions by floating down stream in a course of least resistance, upon the restful support of a literal interpretation. But our books are full of cases where the Court has looked beyond the mere letter of statutes and has administered them according to the justice of their purpose.... 188 Miss. At 692, 192 So. At 563. Newell, 308 So.2d at 76-77. Six years following Newell, Chief Justice Patterson signed an order adopting and promulgating the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure, which became effective for all civil actions filed on or after January 1, 1982. These new rules of procedure superseded numerous procedural statutes.