Court Opinion

ID: 9571075
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:28:55.685186+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:15.729820
License: Public Domain

T. M. Kavanagh, C. J.
I concur in the judgment and opinion of the Court. However since I joined the majority of the Court in the trilogy of decisions in which the Court held that the offices of Mayor of Highland Park, McCoy v Board of Election Commissioners of Highland Park, No 52,217 (Oct. 22, 1968); Mayor of Detroit, Young v Leadbetter, No 52,523 (July 2, 1969); and Treasurer of Detroit, O’Brien v City of Detroit Election Commission, 383 Mich 707 (1970), decision rendered August 19, 1969, were state offices under Const 1963, art 4, § 9, an explanation is in order.
In those cases we based our reasoning upon the fact that the mayor of a city performs certain functions for the state including, but not exclusively limited, to the fact that he is a "conservator of the peace” and therefore "performing any state functions” makes the office a state rather than a local one. Further study indicates that this function was given to the mayor of a city almost a century ago when there were no organized police departments or other organizations to keep the peace. For a number of years now it would appear that rarely is this authority ever used by the mayor of a city, particularly a large city. Other *357functions mayors performed have since become extinct.
Thus, the rule expressed in our past decisions has too long survived its underlying reasons. Frank awareness of these factors prompts candid admission as made by Mr. Justice Jackson of the United States Supreme Court in McGrath v Kristensen, 340 US 162, 178; 71 S Ct 224; 95 L Ed 173 (1950):
"Baron Bramwell extricated himself from a somewhat similar embarrassment by saying, 'The matter does not appear to me now as it appears to have appeared to me then.’ Andrews v Styrap, 26 LTR(NS) 704, 706 [1872]. And Mr. Justice Story, accounting for his contradiction of his own former opinion, quite properly put the matter: 'My own error, however, can furnish no ground for its being adopted by this Court. * * * ’ United States v Gooding, [25 US] 12 Wheat. 460, 478 [6 L Ed 693 (1827)]. Perhaps Dr. Johnson really went to the heart of the matter when he explained a blunder in his dictionary — 'Ignorance, sir, ignorance.’ But an escape less self-depreciating was taken by Lord Westbury, who, it is said, rebuffed a barrister’s reliance upon an earlier opinion of his Lordship: T can only say that I am amazed that a man of my intelligence should have been guilty of giving such an opinion.’ If there are other ways of gracefully and good-naturedly surrendering former views to a better considered position, I invoke them all.”
With this explanation I concur in the opinion of the Court as authored by Justice Swainson.