Court Opinion

ID: 9573392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:54:08.943915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:40:48.241208
License: Public Domain

Mallery, J.
(concurring in the result only)—The Departmental opinion in 50 Wn. (2d) 331, 311 P. (2d) 667, was filed on May 23, 1957. The trial court had found that the defendants’ perjury during a trial constituted contempt of court under RCW 7.20.010, subd. 1 [cf. Rem. Rev. Stat., § 1049]. The departmental opinion set out the statute in full. It reversed the trial court on the narrow, but conclusive, ground that the perjury was not contempt of court under the subdivision relied upon because it did not corrupt the judicial process, notwithstanding the fact that perjury is always intended to affect the result of a trial.
This is one of the two grounds upon which the majority opinion now reverses the trial court. That ground is stated in the opinion in this language:
“The judgment, then, must be reversed because the testimony, assuming it to be false, did not obstruct the court in the performance of its functions.” (Italics mine.)
The only essential difference between the departmental opinion and the present majority opinion is that the departmental opinion interprets the controlling statute while the majority opinion ignores it and depends wholly upon court decisions. Regarding these, it may be noted that the Washington citations are not similar in their facts, and the foreign citations are not binding upon us as precedents.
It is not the court’s prerogative to ignore a statute as the majority does in this case. The constitution to which the court owes its existence and from which it derives its authority lays a mandate upon it to recognize the authoritative acts of the other two branches of the government. A legislative enactment is binding upon the court unless, of course, its provisions violate the constitution. In which case, it is the court’s duty to invalidate it and to give its reasons for so doing.
*582The majority opinion supersedes the departmental opinion solely because of the court’s reluctance to concede the validity of the controlling statute which was a territorial enactment and antedates the constitution itself. Territorial laws have a specific constitutional sanction and approval which subsequent state statutes do not have.
Art. XXVII, § 2, of the state constitution provides:
“All laws now in force in the Territory of Washington, which are not repugnant to this Constitution, shall remain in force until they expire by their own limitation, or are altered or repealed by the legislature: Provided, That this section shall not be so construed as to validate any act of the legislature of Washington Territory granting shore or tide lands to any person, company or any municipal or private corporation.”
For a territorial statute to be invalid upon the ground that it is “repugnant to this Constitution,” it is necessary that there be some provision of the constitution which can be said to conflict with it. Thus, as an example, the territorial act providing for the extra judicial settlement of claims arising out of the relocation of roads became invalid by necessary implication in the light of Art. I, § 16, of the constitution which vested eminent domain proceedings exclusively in the courts.
State statutes are continuously subjected to scrutiny as to the propriety of their titles or the number of their subjects and are invalidated when the courts are not satisfied with them in this regard. Not so territorial acts. They are validated by the constitution itself. Thus, the territorial legislative technique of enactment is put beyond the reach of the court upon such grounds.
Our constitutional forefathers were aware of the contempt statutes. They put no provision in the constitution “repugnant” to them. Under the validating provision in the constitution, the act of adopting it constituted a formal validation of the territorial acts in question.
I think the courts are neither above the constitution nor the constitutionally validated territorial contempt statutes. I therefore reject the majority theory that the territorial *583enactment is a nullity for some unspecified reason.
The statement in the departmental opinion that is the sole cause of majority concern is [p. 334]:
“As to the existence of common-law contempts in this state, we have set out the statutory definition in its entirety because its comprehensive nature indicates that the legislature intended to cover the entire field of contempts. The legislature has the power of superseding the common law. It has elected to do so in this instance. We, therefore, limit ourselves to an interpretation of the statute.”
Curiously enough, after ignoring the statute on the theory that the legislature cannot supersede the common law, the majority does not cite or rely upon the common law in reaching its decision. The obvious explanation of this is that perjury was not a contempt under the common law and, hence, citations in support of the opinion are not available.
Perhaps it would be useful to state what constitutes the common law that is in force in Washington. In Cooper v. Runnels, 48 Wn. (2d) 108, 291 P. (2d) 657, 57 A. L. R. (2d) 597, this court stated generally that the common law as adopted in this state consists of [p. 112]:
“The common law of England, including the English statutes in force at the date of the Declaration of Independence, continues to be the law of this staté except as it is inconsistent with state and Federal constitutions, or incompatible with the institutions and society of this state, or modified by statute. ROW 1.12.030; RCW 4.04.010; In re Hudson, 13 Wn. (2d) 673, 684, 126 P. (2d) 765 (1942) and cases cited.”
From this, it conclusively appears that contemporary decisions of foreign states are not binding upon us as common law or at all.
The distinction between the common law upon contempts and the common law relating to crimes is quite clear. A summary judgment has always been the earmark of a contempt. An indictment or information and the right to a jury trial and due process of law characterized the common law crimes.
*584In 3 Coke’s Institutes 164, the case of Re Rowland v. Eliza, decided at Mich. 10 Jan. term, 1613, in the Star Chamber, is discussed. This case has been mistakenly cited for the proposition that common-law contempt included perjury. The better authority is that Coke’s discussion of this case substantiates the opposite conclusion. Coke clearly says that “perjury in a witness . . . was punishable by the common law, either upon an indictment, or in an information, or by this act in an information.” In other words, perjury was not punishable summarily. The perjurer was accorded due process of law as in the case of all other common-law crimes, which included being charged by indictment or information and tried by a jury.
In 4 Blackstone’s Commentaries, chapter XX, p. 1668, it is stated that perjury is an indictable offense. Nowhere in this work is there any discussion of summary conviction of perjurers, although there is an extensive discussion of the entire list of common-law contempts for which summary punishment could be imposed.
I concur in the result of the majority opinion, but disapprove a judicial technique which ignores Washington statutes and treats foreign citations as if they were binding precedents to be followed in this state.