Court Opinion

ID: 9807507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:07:44.05093+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:41:09.770701
License: Public Domain

Walker, J.,
dissenting. It cannot be questioned that there should be some way of filling a temporary vacancy in the office of mayor, as the prompt and efficient administration of the criminal law would thereby be promoted. But while I recognize the necessity for such a provision of law and regret my inability to agree with the court- that it now exists, the language of the Revisal, section 2933, quoted in the court’s opinion, is to my mind so free from ambiguity and points so clearly to the absence from sickness or other cause of the mayor, as presiding officer and to his ministerial dirties pertaining to that office that my assent to the conclusion of the court must be withheld. It is impossible for me to read that section and not see that the Legislature is referring to the mayor as the presiding officer at the meeting of the commissioners and that the power given in that section to appoint one of their number to perform pro tempore his duties, has reference solely to the duties therein mentioned and imposed on him as presiding officer and not to his judicial duties. This section relates to the legislative proceedings of the commissioners and has no apparent connection with the following section, which relates to the mayor’s judicial functions. Why require the commissioners to select one of their number to act pro tempore with judicial functions, when by section 2931 they axe given the power to fill a vacancy in the office without this restriction. As the mayor has the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace in all criminal matters arising under the laws of the State or the ordinances of the city, it was thought that, when he is absent or under a temporary disability, a justice could perform his judicial duties for him (Revisal, section 2934), and this, it seems, *796bas been the practice in such cases. If this be not so, and there is a casus omissus, the Legislature, and not this court, must provide for it. We must administer the law as we find it and cannot supply the omission by interpretation. The language of section 2933 of the Revisal is susceptible of but one construction which excludes the idea of a mayor pro tempore exercising any judicial function, He is not even a judicial officer de facto, as there must be some semblance of judicial authority before a person assuming to act as a judicial officer can be so regarded. The commissioners had no more right to appoint one of their number-as mayor and thereby clothe him with judicial powers than they had to appoint a judge. Their act in that respect was utterly void and without any legal efficacy whatever. Entertaining the view that the person alleged to have been resisted was not, for the reason stated, a lawful officer, and that the defendant cannot therefore be convicted of the offense charged against him, I must dissent from the opinion and judgment of the court.