Court Opinion

ID: 9868868
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 19:02:26.325896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:56.251155
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
Under ordinary circumstances we would not reply to the remarkable assumptions of law and fact which the Assistant Attorney General has embraced in the motion for rehearing. We are content with the decision of the case, but the Assistant Attorney General has made such remarkable assertions that we think it proper to reply to some of them.
The opinion of J. S. Hogg, as Attorney General, has been invoked under circumstances which give to the act a peculiar significance. We give the same weight to the opinion of Attorney General Hogg that we would to that of any other Attorney General of equal ability, but, as authority, that opinion ranks no higher than the opinion of any other good lawyer. We have read the opinion and find that the constitutional question was not in his mind.
It is also stated that other comptrollers have done as Lane did in this instance. We repeat that a violation of the Constitution cannot be sanctified by frequent repetitions and such acts do not furnish a guide for a court that has regard for the Constitution of the State. It would be legitimate to look to those matters as showing that the comptroller acted in the belief that he had the authority of law for what he did if his motives were material, but they were not in this case. There is nothing in the facts alleged nor in the opinion of this court that justifies the imputation of intentional wrong to the comptroller. It is always to be regretted that such matters should be injected into a court trial.
*356Counsel quotes from the opinion thus: “The fact that seventeen hundred witnesses were summoned in seventeen eases -is not evidence of fraud on the part of the sheriff and judge. The law permitted the parties to sue out the process and the sheriff was compelled by law to serve it. However zealous for the public good the respondent may be, he has no right to arbitrarily refuse a warrant for such claim as this; he must confine his action, to the limits prescribed for him by law.” Then asks: “Under the circumstances we are at a loss to know where the court found out that seventeen hundred witnesses were summoned in seventeen cases, and that this is no evidence of fraud on the part of the sheriff and judge.” We answer that we got it from the attorney himself, when he held the transcript above his head and said, in substance, this shows that there were seventeen hundred witnesses summoned in seventeen cases at a cost of $850.00. We did not examine the transcript, hut assumed that the attorney was correct and we simply illustrate the legal point by using the statement.
The charges of fraud against officers of the State and'the prediction of the evil results of this decision belong to a class of irrelevant declamation which does not deserve'notice.
The power to correct the evil, if it exists, resides in the Legislature and not in this court, who will not disregard their obligations for any reason. The Legislature must change the law if it be changed.
In conclusion we will say that we believe that the interests of the State are as safe with the district judges as they would he with any executive officer. The judges have the means of careful investigation and each judge has but one sheriff’s account to deal with at a time, while the comptroller, if intrusted with it, would have to handle more than two hundred accounts scattered all over the State. All of this cry about the great loss to the State is, we believe, without foundation and is poor material for a member of the Attorney General’s staff to use in argument on strictly a legal question in this court, who have a right to expect aid from that department.
Opinion filed June 12, 1912.