Court Opinion

ID: 9528123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:37:21.260388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:31.136830
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION

Landis, J.
I concur in the majority opinion written
by Judge Bobbitt.
However, I believe it should be noted that a somewhat similar question was before this Court in the recent case of State ex rel. Thomas v. Williams (1958), 288 Ind. 407, 151 N. E. 2d 499, the only difference being that the cited case involved the question of the duration of an appointment to fill a vacancy in the office of county sheriff, rather than that of clerk of the circuit court. From the standpoint of logic as well as from a reading of the opinion of the Court itself in the case before us, it is clearly demonstrated that the result would have been the same for a county officer such as county sheriff as for clerk of the circuit court.
In fact, appellees’ contention in the case at bar that the result reached in the opinion this day handed down by the Court would violate Art. 6, §2 of the Constitution of Indiana, was also made in State ex rel. Thomas v. Williams, supra, but was refuted in my separate opinion therein (concurred in by Emmert, J.), which stated at *52pages 417, 418, of 238 Ind., and pages 503, 504, of 151 N. E. 2d:
“Appellee has raised the question as to the meaning of Art. 6, §2 of the Indiana Constitution, Amendment of 1952, which states:
‘There shall be elected in each county by the voters thereof, at the time of holding general elections, a Clerk of the Circuit Court, Auditor, Recorder, Treasurer, Sheriff, Coroner and Surveyor. . . .’ (Emphasis supplied.)
“This cannot mean that sheriffs or the other officers named are elected at each general election, as they are all now four-year offices, but simply that such officers are elected at general elections. Again, we should not read into this constitutional amendment words not there appearing or intended. Art. 6, §2, has no bearing on the case before us for determination, and no one has advanced any plausible contention to the contrary.”
However, it should be noted that in State ex rel. Thomas v. Williams, supra, a majority of this Court failed to agree and the Court divided two to two (one Judge not participating) in separate opinions written on said question pursuant to Burns’ §2-3232 (1946 Repl.),1 with the result that the lower court’s decision was affirmed holding the appointment of a county sheriff to fill a vacancy did not allow the appointee to hold over during the four-year term for which his predecessor was elected, but only until the next general election. As my opinion in said cause, concurred in by Emmert, J., is in harmony with the views expressed in the case before us, I submit it should be approved and the contrary opinion disapproved.

. Acts 1881 (Spec. Sess.), ch. 38, §654, p. 240.