Court Opinion

ID: 9854263
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:04:03.985595+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:59.816978
License: Public Domain

BLACKBIRD, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent to the opinion of the majority of my associates, and my most compelling reasons for so doing are fully considered and set forth in Nichols v. Levy, 151 Okla. 245, 1 P. 2d 766, which has stood the test of time as a precedent in this jurisdiction for approximately 22 years.
In the 5th paragraph of the majority opinion’s syllabus, it is recognized that such a precedent should stand unless erroneous, but in the body of the opinion it is not established, on the basis of any sound or valid principle, that the Nichols decision is erroneous.
The controlling reason for enlarging the plain wording of the Constitution to authorize the Legislature to create more than one county judge in a single county, as is done in the majority opinion, seems to be that of necessity. Repeated reference is made to the Legislature’s continued additions to the original duties of a county judge with the inference that, in the more populous counties, like Oklahoma county, it has become almost humanly impossible for one man to discharge them. To me, this is no valid reason for countenancing, authorizing or approving a direct violation of the Constitution. In my opinion, to construe the Constitution contrary to its plain wording, in any case, sets a very dangerous precedent and creates an “opening wedge” which may quite conceivably enable the breaking down of any number of its most important provisions, including those pertaining to individual liberties and human rights heretofore regarded as inviolate and guaranteed in plain English words commonly understood by ordinary laymen, untrained in the variously applied and sometimes unwarrantedly used rules of legal documentary construction, to have only one simple and commonly accepted meaning.
The majority opinion recognizes that sec. 11, art. 7, of the Oklahoma Constitution, uses the singular words'“a”, “the”, and “he”, in referring to the county judgeship and court thereby created, and I am unable to see how the use of such plain wording does not restrict our counties to a single such judgeship. One of the strictest and most elemental principles governing judicial interpretation of constitutional or statutory provisions is that their evident meaning must be accepted. See authorities cited in Jones v. Bayless, 208 Okla. 270, 255 P. 2d 506. If the wording thereof is plain, clear and unambiguous, there is no reason or justification for the use of interpretive devices to fabricate a different meaning. The words must stand as they are, until changed by appropriate repealing or amending processes. In this connection, I think it well to remember and emphasize a part of the opinion of this court in Dixon v. Shaw, 122 Okla. 211, 253 P. 500, 504, 50 A.L.R. *5241232, quoted in the Nichols case, supra, as follows:
“ * * * the language employed by the makers of the basic law of the state should not be given a strained or subtle meaning, but such meaning as the average citizen would conclude the language imports. This for the reason that the electorate, in ratifying the document and thereby breathing life into the same, considered the provisions as the language used fairly imports.” (Emphasis ours.)
When the matter is properly analyzed, it will be seen that the real constitutional question presented herein, is not merely whether a county having a population of 300,000, or more, and obviously needing an additional official to aid its one county judge in discharging his official duties, may, under our Constitution, have more than one such judge, but rather: Whether the Constitution authorizes a or any county (irrespective of need) to have more than one county judge. If the Constitution does not mean what it obviously says, then it provides no limit to the number of county judges a county may have, and the Legislature may give it two or more such offices, regardless of need. The majority opinion has failed to point out any respect in which the Constitution is ambiguous on this subject, or to show wherein the plain wording of sec. 11, art. 7 thereof, is in conflict with any other constitutional provision. Accordingly, the matter, in my opinion, remains settled by that plain wording, as made crystal clear in Nichols v. Levy, supra.
I am authorized to announce that Mr. Justice CORN concurs in the views herein expressed.