Court Opinion

ID: 9792533
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:30:28.710579+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:43.477651
License: Public Domain

CAMERON, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent with the majority for two reasons. First, I believe this is a “two-headed *93calf,” and contrary to the single subject rule. The first 10 sections provide for certain rights for victims of crime. The 10 sections appear to be consistent with each other. Section 11, however, is quite different in that it takes away the rule-making power in criminal matters from the supreme court and gives it to the legislature. This is a significant difference.
Second, I believe that this provision is contrary to the inherent right of the courts to provide rules of procedure for the conduct of the state court system. The legislature has no more power to provide rules of procedure for the courts than the courts have power to order the legislature to adopt Roberts Rules of Order.
We note in the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly Volume 4, Spring 1977, No. 2 at page 286, that the courts of England made their own rules of procedure from the earliest times of which we have a record. George Grayson Tyler notes that a rule dated 1457 conferred on the prothonotaries (or clerks) in the Court of Common Pleas the function of drawing up “general rules, for regulating and settling the practice of the court, and the proceedings therein; and to certify the court in matters of practice, when required.”4 By the time the American Constitution was drafted, the King’s Bench at Westminster had been exercising the power to make general rules of procedure for the courts under its jurisdiction. Tidd’s Practice was the standard book for colonial America as well as English procedure. As Dean Roscoe Pound has pointed out:
Hence, if anything was received from England as a part of our institutions, it was that the making of these general rules of practice was a judicial function. Indeed, this was well understood in the beginning of American law. At the very outset, the Supreme Court of the United States, in answer to an inquiry by the Attorney General, said that the practice of the court of King’s Bench would obtain for the time being, but that presently the court would promulgate some rules of practice. Not only was this done by the Supreme Court of the United States, but the old Supreme Court of New York, before 1847, promulgated rules of practice, very many of which were simply turned into sections of the Code of Procedure and are in force under that guise today.5
Dean Pound believed that in England the regulation of procedure went through four stages, legislative interference appearing only in the third stage, after the judicial tribunals in the second stage had formalized in rules of court what was originally the customary procedure of the tribunal. In the third stage, “Parliament makes sweeping changes both in fundamentals and in detail. For a season legislation is called on to bear the brunt of procedural reform.” It should be noted, however, that even when the Parliament did intrude upon the court’s rule-making function, it tacitly recognized the inherent power of the courts to make rules. The code of procedure adopted by Parliament in 1852 contained a provision permitting the judges to alter or amend any of the rules enacted by Parliament. The Judicature Act of 1873 “returned” the jurisdiction of the court rules back to the courts.
In the United States, legislative encroachment upon the rule-making power of the courts was led by David Dudley Field and his Codes of Procedure. Written in an era of legislative supremacy, these codes of procedure for courts were an abject fail*94ure.6
By the turn of the century, many writers were convinced not only that the enactment by the legislative branch of rules of procedure for the courts was an encroachment on the power of the court, in which by misfortune some courts had acquiesced, but also that the results of these rules had been dismal.7 State courts later followed in defending their prerogatives and today recognize that the rule-making power is historically deposited with them as part of their inherent power.8 As Professor Wig-more stated:
[T]he legislature (federal or state) exceeds its constitutional power when it attempts to impose upon the judiciary any rules for the dispatch of the judiciary’s duties; and that therefore all legislatively declared rules for procedure, civil or criminal, in the courts are void, except such as are expressly stated in the Constitution.
Wigmore, All Legislative Rules for Judiciary Procedure are Void Constitutionally, 23 Nw.U.L.Rev. 276, 276 (1928).
The judiciary should not share its rule-making power with the legislature or with anyone else. The making of the rules of court is a court function to be guarded jealously. I do not mean to infer that the people may never take away the rule-making power of courts. To do so, however, the constitutional amendment must be fairly, clearly and distinctly presented and not under the blanket of “victim’s rights.”
APPENDIX
PROPOSITION 104
PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF ARIZONA RELATING TO VICTIMS’ RIGHTS; ...
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Arizona:
The following amendment to the Constitution of Arizona, adding Article II, § 2.1, is proposed, to become valid when approved by a majority of the qualified electors voting thereon and on proclamation of the governor:
Section 1. The Constitution of Arizona is amended by adding Article II, § 2.1:
ARTICLE II, § 2.1
§ 2.1. Victims’ Bill of Rights
SECTION 2.1. (A) TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT VICTIMS’ RIGHTS TO JUSTICE AND DUE PROCESS, A VICTIM OF CRIME HAS A RIGHT:
1. TO BE TREATED WITH FAIRNESS, RESPECT, AND DIGNITY, AND TO BE FREE FROM INTIMIDATION, HARASSMENT, OR ABUSE, THROUGHOUT THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROCESS.
2. TO BE INFORMED, UPON REQUEST, WHEN THE ACCUSED OR CONVICTED PERSON IS RELEASED FROM CUSTODY OR HAS ESCAPED.
*953. TO BE PRESENT AT AND, UPON REQUEST, TO BE INFORMED OF ALL CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS WHERE THE DEFENDANT HAS THE RIGHT TO BE PRESENT.
4. TO BE HEARD AT ANY PROCEEDING INVOLVING A POST-ARREST RELEASE DECISION, A NEGOTIATED PLEA, AND SENTENCING.
5. TO REFUSE AN INTERVIEW, DEPOSITION, OR OTHER DISCOVERY REQUEST BY THE DEFENDANT, THE DEFENDANT’S ATTORNEY, OR OTHER PERSON ACTING ON BEHALF OF THE DEFENDANT.
6. TO CONFER WITH THE PROSECUTION, AFTER THE CRIME AGAINST THE VICTIM HAS BEEN CHARGED, BEFORE TRIAL OR BEFORE ANY DISPOSITION OF THE CASE AND TO BE INFORMED OF THE DISPOSITION.
7. TO READ PRE-SENTENCE REPORTS RELATING TO THE CRIME AGAINST THE VICTIM WHEN THEY ARE AVAILABLE TO THE DEFENDANT.
8. TO RECEIVE PROMPT RESTITUTION FROM THE PERSON OR PERSONS CONVICTED OF THE CRIMINAL CONDUCT THAT CAUSED THE VICTIM’S LOSS OR INJURY.
9. TO BE HEARD AT ANY PROCEEDING WHEN ANY POST-CONVICTION RELEASE FROM CONFINEMENT IS BEING CONSIDERED.
10. TO A SPEEDY TRIAL OR DISPOSITION AND PROMPT AND FINAL CONCLUSION OF THE CASE AFTER THE CONVICTION AND SENTENCE.
11. TO HAVE ALL RULES GOVERNING CRIMINAL PROCEDURE AND THE ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE IN ALL CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS PROTECT VICTIMS’ RIGHTS AND TO HAVE THESE RULES BE SUBJECT TO AMENDMENT OR REPEAL BY THE LEGISLATURE TO ENSURE THE PROTECTION OF THESE RIGHTS.
12. TO BE INFORMED OF VICTIMS’ CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.
(B) A VICTIM’S EXERCISE OF ANY RIGHT GRANTED BY THIS SECTION SHALL NOT BE GROUNDS FOR DISMISSING ANY CRIMINAL PROCEEDING OR SETTING ASIDE ANY CONVICTION OR SENTENCE.
(C) “VICTIM” MEANS A PERSON AGAINST WHOM THE CRIMINAL OFFENSE HAS BEEN COMMITTED OR, IF THE PERSON IS KILLED OR INCAPACITATED, THE PERSON’S SPOUSE, PARENT, CHILD OR OTHER LAWFUL REPRESENTATIVE, EXCEPT IF THE PERSON IS IN CUSTODY FOR AN OFFENSE OR IS THE ACCUSED.
(D) THE LEGISLATURE, OR THE PEOPLE BY INITIATIVE OR REFERENDUM, HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO ENACT SUBSTANTIVE AND PROCEDURAL LAWS TO DEFINE, IMPLEMENT, PRESERVE AND PROTECT THE RIGHTS GUARANTEED TO VICTIMS BY THIS SECTION, INCLUDING THE AUTHORITY TO EXTEND ANY OF THESE RIGHTS TO JUVENILE PROCEEDINGS.
(E) THE ENUMERATION IN THE CONSTITUTION OF CERTAIN RIGHTS FOR VICTIMS SHALL NOT BE CONSTRUED TO DENY OR DISPARAGE OTHERS GRANTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OR RETAINED BY VICTIMS.

. Tyler, The Origin of the Rule-Making Power and Its Exercise by Legislatures, 22 A.B.A.J. 772, 774 (1936) (citation omitted) (hereinafter Tyler). According to Tyler, this rule alone indicates the antiquity of court rules, even though Tidd’s tables for the Court of King’s Bench include no rules prior to 1604. ”[I]t is hardly to be supposed that none existed prior to that time. It is probable Tidd merely had no occasion to cite them. We have the opinion of Jenks that court-made rules of practice go back uninterruptedly through the years until they are lost in the still unexamined archives of the fourteenth century.” Id.

. R. Pound, The Rule-Making Power of the Courts, 12 A.B.AJ. 599, 601 (1926).

. Note, The Judiciary and the Rule-Making Power, 23 S.Cal.L.Rev. 377, 381 (1971); Fair v. State, 220 Ga. 750, 141 S.E.2d 431 (1965).

. Dowling, The Inherent Power of the Judiciary, 21 A.B.A.J. 635, 636 (1935); Franck, Practice and Procedure in Mississippi: An Ancient Recipe for Modem Reform, 43 Miss.LJ. 287 (1972); R. Pound, supra note 2, at 601; Sunderland, The Exercise of the Rule-Making Power, 12 A.B.A.J. 548, 549 (1926); Tyler, supra note 1, at 774. Dean Pound blamed court relinquishment of the inherent power to make their own rules on the "rule-of-thumb apprentice training of the bulk of the profession, which led them to feel that the whole of the law was bound up in procedure and hence that the legislature must prescribe judicial procedure or abdicate control over the law.” R. Pound, supra note 2 at 601. But historically this rule-making power has belonged to the courts: "For the common-law courts have governed procedure by general rules from the middle ages to the present, and the first public action of the Supreme Court of the United States was to make a rule adopting the practice of the Court of King’s Bench as the practice of that tribunal.” Id.

. Garabedian v. Donald William, Inc., 106 N.H. 156, 157, 207 A.2d 425, 426 (1965); Craft v. Commonwealth, 343 S.W.2d 150, 151 (Ky.1961). The court in Craft points out that "it has generally been recognized that courts (even without express authority given by the constitution, statute, or rule of a supreme court of a state) have inherent power to prescribe rules to regulate their proceedings and to facilitate the administration of justice.” Id. (citation omitted) (emphasis added).