Court Opinion

ID: 9553643
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:33:06.257879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:58.499559
License: Public Domain

RANSOM, Justice (specially concurring). I agree with the result reached by the majority. Given the difference in purpose of the fundamental reform effected by the 1969 replacement law considered in Maloney, as compared to the minor changes effected by the 1989 amendments to that law, I believe the Court correctly has concluded that the plain meaning of the statute should control the outcome of this case. I file this special concurrence only to express certain views not entirely in accord with those of the majority. There has been no factual showing that, had the state promptly implemented the statute as urged by intervenors, the judicial system would have been hobbled. In any event, had the legislature intended implementation ninety days after adjournment (i.e., June 16, 1989), this Court would be bound to give effect to that intent. I agree the legislature did not intend immediate implementation. At oral argument, counsel for intervenors stated that, had she not read Maloney in briefing the issues on the petition before us today, she would have concluded that the statute was to be implemented as provided by its express terms — within ninety days of the next general election. Nonetheless, intervenors argued strenuously that the legislature must be presumed to have read and understood Maloney. They urge a rule of statutory construction that would subordinate the “plain meaning” of the statute to the “special meaning” supplied by Maloney. We are asked to presume that the legislature considered Maloney to require immediate implementation of the statute despite its plain meaning. As noted by Karl Llewellyn many years ago in a famous article, in almost every case it is possible to juxtapose with a given canon of statutory construction a counterpart that would lead to the opposite result. For every thrust there is a parry. Llewellyn, Theory of Appellate Decision and the Rules or Canons About How Statutes Are to be Construed, 3 Vand.L.Rev. 395 (1950). It follows that we must be guided by our practical understanding as well as by formal rules when construing legislation. Without evidentiary support, it strains credulity to believe the legislature studied Maloney and concluded that, despite the general election provision, any intent to implement the amendment immediately would be carried out absent a clear and simple statement to that effect. Finally, as I understand intervenors’ constitutional argument, once the legislature has set up a jury selection system, there exists a constitutional right to have one’s jury selected in accordance with that system. Without venturing an opinion on the merits of this argument, I note that it logically depends on our interpretation of when the legislature intended that the statute under consideration be implemented. Having decided that the legislature did not intend for clerks to be required to select driver’s license holders for jury lists until ninety days after the next general election, we need not reach the constitutional issue raised.