Court Opinion

ID: 9865135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:25:02.006068+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:33.230545
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Walker
dissenting.
I am not able to assent to the holding of the court.
Except to say that I cannot agree to them, I need not discuss the objections to the petition raised by the protestante, but which are not made the basis of the court’s decision. Of the grounds specifically relied upon in the opinion, those stated in paragraphs numbered two and three are, in my judgment, open to serious doubt, but it seems clear to me that the ground set forth in paragraph five is untenable; and since it is necessary to sustain the latter assignment in order to reach the result arrived at by the court, I shall briefly indicate my views concerning it.
The opinion says that the three thousand names affected by this assignment are to be stricken because of tampering. A small part of this number was attacked because erasures appear to have been made under the addresses or dates. The bulk of the number, however— and that part of it essential to the result reached by the court — was attacked because, as it is claimed, the addresses and dates or both were written in by persons other than the signers, and after the signing. It is admitted that under the law persons other than signers may write in these particulars. If the addition, subsequent to the signing, by a person thus authorized to make it, and in accordance with the instructions of the signer, and without fraudulent intent, and without changing anything that has been written, constitutes a tampering, it is “of a different house and no way kin” to the species of tampering we are accustomed to denounce as invalidating other and more technical documents than an initiative petition. If the contention be that the annexing of the date and addresses must be done at the time of the signing, the contention is sustained by Elkms v. Milliken, 80 *422Colo. 135, 249 Pao. 655, but this should not be unreasonably interpreted to mean that the signature is invalid, if the writing of another signature intervenes before the completion of the first, if all be done in the signer’s presence, and so that he may know what address and date he is certifying to. But however the requirement be stated, the evidence does not show a violation of it in this case.
The circumstances relied upon to show such violation are that blocks or groups of the word “Denver,” or the date, or both, were shown to have been written in by one hand, and according to the opinion of a handwriting expert, at one sitting. This testimony was given with reference to a few only of the many sections of the petition, and as to many others (included in the court’s computation) it was claimed .that the intrinsic evidence in the appearance of the document itself is sufficient. The expert witness also ventured his opinion, with reference to one section only, that the writing of the blocks or groups was done after the signing. But he gave as his reason for this conclusion the observation that he could not think of any reason why it would be done before. Upon this meagre evidence the secretary of state appears to have found that the writing in of the addresses and dates in these cases was done out of the presence of the signers, and so long after the signatures were affixed as not to constitute a compliance with the law. This finding is now approved by this court, although, as it seems to me, it is hardly more than a guess. It is unsupported by evidence which would be regarded as sufficient to maintain an issue in a civil case. I can not adopt it, in preference to the equal probabilities that, even if the addresses and dates were in fact all written at one sitting, this might have been done in anticipation of obtaining signers from Denver only, or in the presence of a group of signers, or under other circumstances consonant with the law, probabilities that are reinforced by the recital or certificate of *423the signers themselves, by the presumption in favor of the regularity and validity of the document, and by the presumption against the commission of criminal acts on the part of the circulators, and the signers.
I think the judgment should be reversed.