Court Opinion

ID: 9545711
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:18:02.855669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:25.072395
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ADAIR:
(specially concurring in the result).
The law-making authority of this state is vested in its Legislative Assembly. Constitution of Montana, Article Y. section 1.
In the exercise of its law-making power the Legislature has enacted into the law of this state, statutes defining “law” and declaring how it is expressed and where it is to be found. R.C.M. 1947, sections 12-101, 12-102 and 12-103.
A court has no power to do anything which is not authorized by law.
*552“Judicialpower is exercised by means of courts which are the mere creations and instruments of the law, and independent of the • law the -courts have no existence. The law precedes the courts. The law governs the courts.” State ex rel. Bennett v. Bonner, 123 Mont. 414, at page 425, 214 Pac. (2d) 747, at page 753.
There is no provision in the Constitution or statutes of Montana, that authorizes the district court or a judge thereof to make any order requiring the county attorney to hand over and deliver to the defendant, Ernest 0. Emery, or to his attorney, on defendant’s arraignment, the evidence which the county attorney, with the assistance of the peace officers of the city and county of Missoula have industriously gathered and now hold, and which is required by the county attorney in the prosecution of the defendant, Ernest 0. Emery, for the crime of murder in the first degree, of which he is accused by information filed, March 26, 1959, in the district court for Missoula County.
Since there is no provision of the Constitution or statutes of Montana that authorizes the inspection, R.C.M. 1947, section 12-103, requires that the judge look to the common law of England for his rule of decision. There he should have observed that at common law neither the defendant nor his counsel have any right, in advance of defendant’s trial, to inspect the evidence in the hands of the official prosecutor. Rex v. Holland, 4 Durn. & East 691, 100 Eng. Rep. 1248.
I find no law in Montana to authorize the making of the inspection order. On this ground alone, I concur in this court’s order denying the motion to quash the alternative writ of prohibition and making the writ of prohibition abolute.