Court Opinion

ID: 9826153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 15:26:33.035613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:53.568270
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Woods.
I dissent because I am unable to accept the doctrine that the provision of the Constitution prohibiting a Judge related within the sixth degree to either party from hearing a cause is waived by the failure to inquire into the relationship before trial.
2 All the requirements of the Constitution of this State are mandatory, and it is therein provided by article V, section 6, that “No Judge shall preside at the trial of any cause in the event of which he may be interested, or' when either of the parties shall be connected with him by affinity or consanguinity, within such degrees as may be prescribed by law.”
The statute law has fixed the sixth degree of relationship, and the probate judge in this case was a second cousin. In some of the States the Courts have held that such a mandatory provision cannot be waived. Oakley v. Aspinwall, 3 N. Y. 547; Gulf etc. Ry. Co. v. Looney (Tex.), 95 S. W. 691. Other Courts, including the Supreme Court of this State, have held that a party will be held to have waived the objection if he knew of the relationship before the trial. Ex parte Hilton, 64 S. C. 201. Other authorities on the subject are collated in 23 Cyc. 596, and the note to Moses v. Julian, 84 Am. Dec. 130. In several of the States the *251decisions will be found to depend on the special terms of the Constitution or statute law.
It concerns not only the parties to the suit, but all the people, that there should be confidence in the impartiality of Judges. The prohibition of the Constitution is directed to the Judges themselves, forbidding them to preside at a trial when related to a party within the degree fixed by law. The law is intended not only to give security to the parties and to promote confidence in the Courts, but to safeguard judicial officers against criticism. There may be, it is true, special circumstances requiring a party to make inquiry as to the relationship or interests of the Judge. But the Judge himself may well be presumed to know his own relationship within the sixth degree, and as a general rule the parties may well rely on this presumption,- and on the further presumption that the Judge will be mindful of the law on the subject and will obey it.
It would be unseemly that parties should have placed upon them the burden of inquiring at their peril into disqualifying interests and relationships of judicial officers. .Jurors and Judges in this respect stand on a very different footing. Jurors are drawn from the body of the people for a temporary public service; judicial officers are set apart because of their supposed special fitness for continuous public service. The presumption that Judges know the law bearing upon their own qualifications and official duties is very strong; such presumption as to jurors is comparatively weak. Hence the law allows to parties the opportunity to examine jurors upon their voir dire, and places upon parties the burden of making reasonable efforts before trial to ascertain and make known facts tending to disqualify them. In view of this distinction it seems clear that the case of State v. Robertson, 54 S. C. 147, 31 S. E. 868, and other similar cases relating to jurors, do not control this case. The facts in the case of Clinton v. Leake, 71 S. C. 22, 50 S. E. 541, cited in the opinion of Mr. Justice Gary, were *252so different that it seems to me that case is obviously inapplicable.
The point was made in this Court, for the first time, that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction to hear the motion to remand the case to the court of probate for a new trial by a duly qualified judge of that court. I am unable to find any mode of procedure in such case laid down by statute, or by rule of Court, or by judicial decision in this State, but it seems to me evident that when any appellate court finds on its docket a case in which the fact is made clearly to appear that the judgment appealed from was not rendered by a Court constituted according to the Constitution and laws of the State, and the parties have not waived their right to such a tribunal, it should refuse to hear the appeal and remand the case to be tried by a properly constituted Court.
Kor these reasons I think the judgment of the Circuit Court should be reversed.
Mr. Justice Hydrick did not sit in this case.