Court Opinion

ID: 9761009
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:28:18.003393+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:18.774437
License: Public Domain

Darrell Hickman, Justice, concurring. I agree with the result but write about this court’s inherent rule making power. It’s a power we have abused, and I am not confident we can use it with proper restraint. At least, it needs a thorough airing. I have no disagreement with the theoretical principle that courts have an inherent power, if they choose to use it, to adopt purely practice and procedural rules. But when courts speak of their inherent power, it is like monarchs invoking divine rights: the people had better check their pockets and their persons because they are about to lose something they thought was theirs. The most notable and flagrant instance of our misuse of this power is found in the Rules of Criminal Procedure. Virtually all of the rules relating to arrest and search and seizure are merely restatements of principles of law announced by the United States Supreme Court, or codification of Arkansas Statutes. Take for example Rule 14.2, Search of Open Lands, which reads: An officer may, without a search warrant, search open lands and seize things which he reasonably believes subject to seizure. See also Rule 12.4, Search of Vehicles: Permissible Circumstances, which reads: (a) If, at the time of the arrest, the accused is in a vehicle or in the immediate vicinity of a vehicle of which he is in apparent control, and if the circumstances of the arrest justify a reasonable belief on the part of the arresting officer that the vehicle contains things which are connected with the offense for which the arrest is made, the arresting officer may search the vehicle for such things and seize any things subject to seizure and discovered in the course of the search. (b) The search of a vehicle pursuant to this rule shall only be made contemporaneously with the arrest or as soon thereafter as is reasonably practicable. These are not rules of procedure, they are statements of substantive law gleaned from Supreme Court decisions interpreting the United States Constitution. By what authority do we legislate principles of law? Absolutely none. We not only cannot do so, the legislature cannot delegate its powers to us to do so. The general principle of law is not equivocal. 16 Am. Jur. 2d Constitutional Law § 335 reads: Since under the doctrine of the separation of the powers of government the lawmaking function is assigned exclusively to the legislature, it is a cardinal principle of representative government (and one not uncommonly stated, in terms, in state constitutional provisions), that except when authorized by the constitution — as may be the case in reference to municipal corporations — the legislature cannot delegate the power to make laws to any other authority or body, regardless of any exigency or emergency which may arise. The legislature may not in any degree abdicate its power; it may not make the effectiveness of a specific act dependent upon the will of another, and certainly it may not delegate to another the power to enact a law, whether in form or effect. Any attempt to abdicate legislative power in any particular field, although valid in form, is unconstitutional and void. Section 337 reads: The powers which the legislature is prohibited from delegating are those which are strictly, or inherently and exclusively, legislative. Thus, the rule is that in order that a court may be justified in holding a statute unconstitutional as a delegation of legislative power, it must appear that the power involved is purely legislative in nature — that is, one appertaining exclusively to the legislative department. It is the nature of the power, and not the liability of its use or the manner of its exercise, which determines the validity of its delegation. Purely legislative power, which can never be delegated, has been described as the authority to make a complete law — complete as to the time when it shall take effect and as to whom it shall be applicable — and to determine the expediency of its enactment. Thus, the legislature may not delegate its power to enact, suspend, or repeal laws. Nor may it delegate such essential elements of its lawmaking power as its power to declare principles and standards, or general public policy. This doctrine of separation of powers is contained in Ark. Const., art. 4, §§ 1 and 2. We have, in some cases, shed doubt on our ability to distinguish between laws of substance and procedure. In a recent decision involving the elementary principle of whether an act of the legislature could be applied retroactively, the majority could not differentiate between a statute that was substantive or procedural. Spires v. Russell, 300 Ark. 530, 780 S.W.2d 547 (1989) (Hickman, J., dissenting.) So I question the opinion in this case which contains dictum that could lead to an extension of this court’s rule making power. We do not need to extend that power: we need to limit it and use it with careful restraint. That we have not done.