Court Opinion

ID: 9810682
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:56:17.237779+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:09.306464
License: Public Domain

Davis, J.
(concurring in the conclusion reached by the Court, but dissenting upon other grounds): Judge Whitaker was a de jure Judge, and his acts while holding, de facto, a regular term of Rockingham Superior Court, which was, by law, to have been held by Judge Shipp, or by his successor in the event of a vacancy, were valid, and this is sufficient to decide the question before us. -But I do not concur in the opinion that the Governor had the power to require him to hold that Court, under Art. 4, § 11 of the Constitution, or to appoint him to hold it, under section 913 of The Code, and I will content myself with a brief statement of my opinion, without elaboration.
I think Art 4, § 11 of the Constitution, as amended by the Convention of 1875, means to provide for the inability of a *981living Judge regularly assigned in order of rotation to preside in any district, to do so because of his protracted illness, “or any other unavoidable accident to him, by reason of which he shall.be unable to preside,” in which event “the Governor may require any Judge to hold one or more specified terms in said district in lieu of the Judge assigned to hold the Courts of said district”; and I do not think that, by any fair and unstrained implication, it can be made to apply to a vacancy, for that is provided for in clear, express and unmistakable language in section 25 of the same article, and section 11 provides only for Courts to be held in lieu of the disabled living Judge, who, as soon as his disabilities shall be removed, will return to hold his Courts, and not in lieu of his successor who fills the vacancy caused by his death, resignation or otherwise, unless he also shall be under some temporary disability. Under section 913 of The Code, the Governor has power to “appoint 'any Judge to hold a special term of the Superior Court in any county,” and to consent to the exchange of Courts by Judges, but he has no power to appoint a special term of the Court except as provided, and only as provided, by sections 914 and 915 of The Code, for it will be observed that the constitutional provision (Art. 4, § 14 of the Constitution of 1868), as it existed when State v. Watson, 75 N. C., 136, was decided, authorized the Governor, “for good reasons, which he shall report to the Legislature at its current or next session, to require any Judge to hold one or more specified terms of said Courts in lieu of the Judge in whose district they are.” This provision does not appear in the amended Constitution. I am not aware of any construction that has been placed upon Art. 4, § 11 of the present Constitution, or upon section 913 of The Code, by this Court, that will confer upon the executive power to appoint or require a Judge to hold a regular term of the Court in a vacant judicial district.
*982State v. Watson, 75 N. C., 136, does not construe either, but is based upon, and is a construction of, Art. 4, § 14 of the Constitution of 1868, which, by express language, conferred upon the Governor, for “good reasons, which he shall report to the Legislature,” etc., power to require a Judge “to hold one or more specified terms in lieu of the Judge in whose district they are.” And that case does not do more than declare that the Governor, under that section of Art. 4 of the Constitution of 1868, “is the final judge of the fitness of his reasons,” as to all the world except the Legislature, to which he is required to report them.
There is no such provision in the present Constitution or laws, and it is no authority in construing the provisions now being considered.
State v. Monroe, 80 N. C , 373, so far as it relates to Art. 4, § 11, only asserts that it does not restrict the Legislature from creating an extra, term of the Superior Court of any county and designating the presiding Judge to hold the same; and State v. Speaks, 95 N. C., 689, só far as this question is concerned, only asserts that the acts of an officer de facto are as binding as if he were an officer de jure, and in that all concur.
It is not contended by me that the amended Constitution intended to put an end to all exchanges, or that the Legislature has not the power to provide, within the limits of the Constitution, for the creation of additional or special Courts, inferior to the Supreme Court, and to provide for the manner in which they may be held, but I do not think that the Courts which Judge Whitaker was required to hold were special terms or additional Courts provided for by any law. This Court is bound to take judicial notice of the times and places at which the regular terms of the Superior Courts are held, and we are bound to know, judically, that it was the regular Pall Term, and not a special term, of Rockingham Court that Judge Whitaker was required to hold.
*983We are charged with the knowledge that the Governor had no power to appoint a special term of Rockingham Superior Court, except as provided for in sections 914 and 915 of The Code, and there is no evidence to warrant the assumption or presumption that the Governor was acting under those sections.- So far from it, it appears from the record, and is found as a fact, that it was a regular term which was to have been held by Judge Shipp.
I do not think that the Governor is the sole judge of the sufficiency of the evidence to satisfy him that the business of the Court is such as to require the holding of a special term, and even if we could presume, without any evidence and against the record and knowledge with which the Court is charged, that Judge Whitaker was required to hold a special term of Rockingham Superior Court, the Governor had no power to appoint such a Court to be held at the same time as the regular term; and if it appeared, at any time other than a regular term, by the certificate of any Judge, a majority of the Board of County Commissioners, or otherwise, that the business of the county required it, the duty of the Governor is imperative, whatever may be his opinion as to the necessity of the special term, to order it. The language of the statute is “shall,” and his executive duty is to obey.
But it is said that the death of Judge Shipp was an accident, within the meaning of Art. 4, §11 of the Constitution. I cannot concur in this view. It would never occur to me to say that Judge Shipp was “unable to preside” at Rock-ingham Court by reason of the accident of his death. Death would put no accidental suspension to his ability to hold the Court, but it would create a vacancy', and no one could hold it in lieu of him until the vacancy was filled, for there was no one in existence in lieu of whom it could be held. One may fill a vacancy created by the death or resignation of another, but can it be said that he is acting in lieu of the *984dead man? His power to act ended with his life, and when that ended, his place was vacant, and, until filled, there was no one to act, or for whom another could act.
So much of the opinion as is based upon the supposed necessity that might otherwise be imposed upon the Governor to act hastily is an argument ab inconvenienti, the force of which is, I think, greatly lessened, if not, rendered nugatory, by the provisions of sections 914 and 915 of The Code, under which special terms, if any necessity or emergency may exist, may be appointed in the manner plainly prescribed by law, without the exercise of any doubtful or uncertain power which may not exist.
Concurring in the conclusion arrived at, and regretting that I cannot concur in the entire opinion of the majority of the Court, which, however harmless it may be at the present time, may, I fear, in the future, become a dangerous precedent in the hands of an unwise or unconscieutious executive, I feel constrained to enter my dissent to so much of the opinion as holds that the Governor had the rightful power to require Judge Whitaker to hold the regular Fall Term of Rockingham Superior Court, made vacant by the lamented death of Judge Shipp, who, in the order of rotation, would have been the proper Judge to preside.