Court Opinion

ID: 9676506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:25:54.180538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:48.994473
License: Public Domain

Robert H. Dudley, Justice, concurring. I concur solely to issue a caveat to the trial judges hearing criminal cases. The Uniform Rules of Evidence are perhaps the most outstanding of the Uniform Laws. The trial judges and trial lawyers have grown accustomed to the use of them and appreciate using rules which are located in one place, rather than in scattered cases. For the first time since their adoption, the courts are faced with the question of whether a rule of evidence is in existence. The Uniform Rules were adopted as the Arkansas Rules of Evidence by an invalid session of the General Assembly. See Ricarte v. State, 290 Ark. 100, 717 S.W.2d 488 (1986). We declared their adoption invalid, but then, under our rule-making authority, adopted them as court rules. Ricarte, id. at 104. The Legislature later enacted Rule 803(25), but this Court has not adopted such a rule, and probably will not do so. The question then becomes whether this Court or the General Assembly has the authority to promulgate rules of evidence. This separation of powers issue was not raised in the case at bar and is not answered by today’s opinion. Obviously, the trial judges are going to be faced with the question of whether Rule 803(25) is a part of the Rules of Evidence. If I were a trial judge faced with such a decision, I would carefully consider the following language in the Ricarte case, supra, at 104: Under our own rule-making power and under existing statutory authority, as of this date we adopt the Uniform Rules of Evidence as the law in Arkansas. We have no misgivings about either the validity of our action or its wisdom, but a few comments are appropriate. For more than fifty years there has been a steady trend in favor of committing to the courts the regulation of practice and procedure. Dean Wigmore took a strong stand in the matter as early as 1928. Editorial, 23 111. L. Rev. 276. Many others agreed. In 1940 the American Bar Association chose as the subject for its annual Ross essay contest: “To What Extent May Courts under the Rule-Making Power Prescribe Rules of Evidence?” The winning essay by Prof. Thomas F. Green, Jr., argued persuasively that all rules of evidence are properly subject to the courts’ rule-making power. 26 A.B.A.J. 482 (1940). Other pertinent articles include another Ross essay submitted by Charles A. Riedly, 26 A.B.A.J. 601 (1940); Morgan, “Rules of Evidence—Substantive or Procedural?,” 10 Vanderbilt L. Rev. 467 (1957); and Joiner and Miller, “Rules of Practice and Procedure: A Study of Judicial Rule Making,” 55 Mich. L. Rev. 623 (1957). Arkansas has kept step with the progress made elsewhere. Our Constitution of 1874 confers upon the Supreme Court “a general superintending control over all inferior courts of law and equity.” Art. 7, § 4. We note in passing that the Supreme Court of New Mexico relied on almost that identical language in the New Mexico constitution as authority for the court’s action in adopting the Uniform Rules of Evidence as the law in that state. Ammerman v. Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc., 89 N.M. 307, 551 P.2d 1354 (1976), where the court analyzed in depth its rule-making power. In 1971, the Arkansas legislature used mandatory words in committing the regulation of criminal practice and procedure to this court: The Supreme Court of the State of Arkansas shall have the power to prescribe, from time to time, rules of pleading, practice, and procedure with respect to any or all proceedings in criminal cases. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 22-242 (Supp. 1985). That action was not an improper delegation of legislative power; it merely recognized the court’s inherent power. Miller v. State, 262 Ark. 223, 555 S.W.2d 563 (1977). The statutory language quoted above was repeated in a 1973 statute by which the legislature recognized the Supreme Court’s power to prescribe rules with respect to procedure in civil cases. § 22-245. Under those statutes, we have adopted the Rule of Criminal Procedure and the Rules of Civil Procedure. More recently we adopted rules for the certification of court reporters. We are not the first court to adopt the Uniform Rules of Evidence by judicial action. That step has been taken not only in New Mexico, as mentioned earlier, but also in Florida, In re Florida Evidence Code, 372 So.2d 1369 (1979); in Montana, Montana Rules of Evidence, Ch. 10, Mont. Code Ann. (1984); and in Wisconsin, In re Promulgation of Rules of Evidence, 59 Wis. 2d R1-R377 (1973). The Supreme Court of the United States adopted the Federal Rules of Evidence pursuant to federal statutes quite similar to the 1971 and 1973 statutes enacted in Arkansas. See Reporter’s Note, 409 U.S. 1132 (1972).